Sermon Cloud

This coming week, students in our Catholic High Schools are beginning a new semester. There will be new classes, new routines, perhaps new teachers, and for some senior students, the completion of application forms for admission to post-secondary institutions.

The choices that are made in these weeks will no doubt shape these young people in ways they cannot yet dream about. Their careers, hopes, dreams for the future may all be affected. Guidance counselors (both the professional ones and others such as wise parents and other guides) have no doubt played a part already in these young people making decisions about what their interests are, the hobbies they have, the sports they enjoy ... and more.

Recent history has shown us that those who are at the beginning stages of the workforce can expect to change career paths at least a few, and sometimes many times throughout their lives, but at its most basic level, the decision about what young people want to do with their lives, what they want to become, the careers they want to pursue, should be guided by what they do best.

In today's gospel, Jesus called Simon Peter, James and John to do what they did best - to fish, but in this case, they were invited to fish for people (Lk 5:4-11). Jesus never stops calling his disciples, us included, to do what we do best - to continue learning, to continue growing, to continue proclaiming the good news of our faith.

Each of us has different talents and gifts: things we do best, so He calls us in different ways to continue the work of casting the nets. In some cases, we have the gift of music, so He invites us to share this gift in providing music for the faith community or our own families and friends. In other cases, we have the gift of clear speech so he calls us to help proclaim the scriptures. Perhaps we have a gift for cooking, for carpentry, for finance, for organization. Jesus calls us to use them all to serve Him and to call others to do the same.

Each one of us can help to make this parish community even better than it already is. Perhaps Christ is calling out to you in the way he called to the prophet Isaiah in today's first reading, "Whom shall I send?" (Is 6:8)

In answer to this question, there is always a part of the human heart that feels unworthy. In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul explained that he too saw himself as "unfit to be called an apostle, because (he) had persecuted the Church" ( 1 Cor 15:9), but it is the grace of God that called him to change his ways, that made him the person he became, that allowed him to preach the good news to the gentiles.

The grace of God also allows us to continue this work, of playing an active part in making our parish a place of welcome for the stranger, a sanctuary of prayer in the midst of the city, a place where high school students who have major choices to make, working folk who have just averted a strike and retirees who have wisdom and experience to share, can all meet, pray, sing, rejoice and cry together. Like Isaiah, each one of us can answer the Lord's call, "Here I am, send me!" (Is 6:8)