Welcome All the Fish

[Matt 13:47-50] ⁴⁷ 'Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet that is cast in the sea and brings in a haul of all kinds of fish. ⁴⁸ When it is full, the fishermen bring it ashore; then, sitting down, they collect the good ones in baskets and throw away those that are no use. ⁴⁹ This is how it will be at the end of time: the angels will appear and separate the wicked from the upright, ⁵⁰ to throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.

The other day at Mass the Priest read the Gospel reading above.  Being quite the fish fanatic I was surprised I did not remember this comparison of the Kingdom of Heaven.  I remembered the one about the mustard seed, and the one about the field sown with weeds by the enemy, but this one about the Kingdom of Heaven being like a net I had forgotten. 

Fr. explained that the net caught all kinds of fish, big fish small fish, old and young, and the net is the Church.  He pointed out that it is not until "the end of time" that the fish will be separated, until then all the fish are to remain together in the net.  We are not the fishermen, we are the fish.  The fishermen are the Angels.  With this in mind our job is not to separate the good from the bad, in fact as one of the fish there is no way for us to know the good from the bad, so our job is to welcome all the fish so that God may transform the bad into good.  Everyone has until "the end of time" or the end of their time, whichever comes first, to be transformed. Fr. ended by pointing out we are not the quality control we should accept all. 

Well I found this all to be quite lovely and I wrote it down so I could remember it later and went on into my day.  It just so happens that I work in quality assurance at my office.  As such I suppose I have developed quite an intolerance for low quality or even low morality.  At lunch time I happened to overhear a conversion about just such low morality and I became quite angry.  I was so angry that later when I saw the person who had made these comments, I responded very sharply to their question and brushed by them as quick as possible not looking at them, because I did not want to associate with such a person.

It wasn't until later when I realized that Jesus would not have treated this person that way.  This person clearly has some brokenness in their soul and perhaps was making such offensive comments in public as a cry for help.  I was not welcoming toward this person, all I saw was a bad fish.  I was putting myself in the place of the fishermen rather than the fish.  As one of the fish it's my job to encourage the rest of the fish.  Everyone of them is scarred, we are in a net and we don't know where we are going or what is going to happen to us.  In fact the reading itself is quite frighting emphasizing the fact that the wicked will be thrown into the furnace.  I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up in the furnace and I don't want anyone else to end up there either.  So it's my job to try and help those other fish, even if they act bad, that doesn't mean they are bad.  In fact I may be the one who needs their help so pushing them away is not going to help me or them.  

I am sad that I can not go back in time and do this moment over, now that I have clarity about the matter.  However, I can pray that I remember I'm am only one of the fish, and next time a situation such as this occurs, I hope I can show love and mercy just as the King of Mercy would.  Please pray for me dear fishes, and pray for all, that we may all be transformed into upright fish by the the end of our time. Amen.