The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2025 February 9, 2025

 Putting Out into the Deep:

The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2025 

February 9, 2025

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Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

 

Today we hear the readings of the call to discipleship. The prophet Isaiah is commissioned in the first reading, and Paul talks about his unusual call in the second reading, while the Gospel illustrates the calls of Peter, James, and John. By extension, we are supposed to see ourselves as ones who are called into discipleship. Jesus never asked that we worship him, but that we follow him. When we are invited into the community of faith, we are in touch with the ways we do not measure up or ready to accept the call. However, Jesus does not stop.

 

The Gospel also shows us the weariness of Peter and his partners who completed their night of fishing only to come up with empty nets. When Jesus begins to speak about the riches of God’s kingdom, he asks them to try again – hopefully with new insight. Simon Peter does not yet understand what Jesus is conveying, and he reluctantly agrees to do as Jesus asks only to be astounded with the bounty of his catch. The morals of the story are: (1.) God creates new possibilities. (2.) We must try new ways, just as God does. It ought to be obvious to us that the old ways are not working, and the Church must be quite creative and prophetic about bringing people to Christ.

 

As the Roman Catholic Church examines its own history, it realizes that it has grown out of medieval, monastic Europe. Parish structures were built from within feudal territories and became one model of devotional life. The priest and bishop assumed particular levels of authority over the lives of the people. We also see today that life is no longer geographically based as people are mobile and selective and enjoy a new network of support, and the territorial parish no longer fits into the current model. Rather than trying to hold onto and retain what may be a relic of the past, is there another way to re-imagine church live and one’s own vocation? Can the church be prophetic in its ways of engagement with the world, including its own people, people of other faiths, and the secular world this is filled with spiritual seekers?

 

Tomas Halik, a prominent Czech priest and theologian recently remarked in January’s edition of Commonweal about Pope Francis. He wrote, “Pope Francis is the great prophet of our time, on of the greatest popes in Church history. No one is doing more to build bridges between cultures than Pope Francis. His call for synodal renewal of the Church can mean much more than the transformation of the Church from a rigid, clerical, bureaucratic organization into a flexible network of mutual communication. Synodality is a common journey; it is meant to renew, revive, and deepen communication, and not only within the Church. It is also about the Church's ability to communicate with other systems in society, with other cultures and religions, with the whole human family, and with the planet we inhabit: to perceive the ongoing symphony of creation. It can also inspire the transformation of the process of globalization into a process of sharing and solidarity.”

 

“The Church is to be a community of pilgrims that contributes to the transformation of the world and the whole human family into a community of the journey, helping to deepen the dynamics of sharing. The Church also has a political, prophetic, therapeutic, and transformative mission in the world. Church is a sacrament, a symbol, and an instrument of the unity to which all humanity is called in Christ.”

 

When I read this, I am inspired. I see that the Church is doing something new. Pope Francis is helping the Church do something new – and necessary. Like the motto of Boston’s new archbishop, and like Simon Peter, the church is putting out into the deep. No doubt, the church will be astounded with the new life, vitality, and abundance it catches. God is indeed doing something new. Alleluia. Alleluia. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading: 

Monday: (Genesis 1) Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”

 

Tuesday: (Genesis 1) "Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky." and so it happened: God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds.

 

Wednesday: (Genesis 2) At the time when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens -- while as yet there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the LORD God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil.

 

Thursday: (Genesis 2) "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him." So the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

 

Friday (Genesis 3) Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat
from any of the trees in the garden?”

 

Saturday (Genesis 3) The LORD God called to Adam and asked him, "Where are you?"
He answered, "I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself."

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Mark 6) Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there.
As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.

 

Tuesday: (Mark 7) When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.

 

Wednesday (Mark 7) “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”

 

Thursday (Mark 7) Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet.

 

Friday (Mark 7) Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.

 

Saturday (Mark 8) "My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance."

 

Saints of the Week

 

February 10: Scholastica (480-543) was the twin sister of Benedict, founder of Western monasticism. She is the patroness of Benedictine nuns. She was buried in her brother's tomb; they died relatively close to one another. 

 

February 11: Our Lady of Lourdes is remembered because between February 11 and July 16, 1858, Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in a cave near Lourdes, France eighteen times. The site remains one of the largest pilgrim destinations. Many find healing in the waters of the grotto during the spring.

 

February 12: Mardi Gras is your last chance to eat meat before Lent. This is the last day of Carnival (Carne- meat, Goodbye – vale). Say goodbye to meat as we begin the fasting practices tomorrow.

 

February 14: Cyril, monk, and Methodius, bishop (Ninth Century), were brothers who were born in Thessalonica, Greece. They became missionaries after they ended careers in teaching and government work. They moved to Ukraine and Moravia, a place between the Byzantium and Germanic peoples. Cyril (Constantine) created Slavonic alphabet so the liturgy and scriptures could be available to them. Cyril died during a visit to Rome and Methodius became a bishop and returned to Moravia.

 

February 15: Claude La Colombiere, S.J., religious (1641-1682), was a Jesuit missionary, ascetical writer, and confessor to Margaret Mary Alocoque at the Visitation Convent at Paray La Monial. As a Jesuit, he vowed to live strictly according to the Jesuit Constitutions to achieve utmost perfection. Together, they began a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• February 9, 1621. Cardinal Ludovisi was elected Pope Gregory XV. He was responsible for the canonization of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier. 
• February 10, 1773. The rector of Florence informed the general, Fr. Ricci, that a copy of the proposed Brief of Suppression had been sent to the Emperor of Austria. The general refused to believe that the Society would be suppressed. 
• February 11, 1563. At the Council of Trent, Fr. James Laynez, the Pope's theologian, made such an impression on the cardinal president by his learning and eloquence, that cardinal decided at once to open a Jesuit College in Mantua, his Episcopal see. 
• February 12, 1564. Francis Borgia was appointed assistant for Spain and Portugal. 
• February 13, 1787. In Milan, Fr. Rudjer Boskovic, an illustrious mathematician, scientist, and astronomer, died. At Paris he was appointed "Directeur de la Marine." 
• February 14, 1769. At Cadiz, 241 Jesuits from Chile were put on board a Swedish vessel to be deported to Italy as exiles. 
• February 15, 1732. Fr. Chamillard SJ, who had been reported by the Jansenists as having died a Jansenist and working miracles, suddenly appeared alive and well!