“The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
matthew 13:47
which collects fish of every kind.”
Reflection
Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a net thrown into the sea that catches all types of fish. When the net is pulled in, the good fish are put into buckets and the bad fish are thrown away. Jesus says it will be like this at the end of the age, when the angels separate the wicked from the righteous.
Sometimes we might question why God allows the bad to brought in with the good, as this parable suggests. Why wouldn’t he collect only the good and throw away the bad right away? We easily forget that only God can judge hearts and know if someone is ‘wicked’ or ‘righteous.’ To us, a certain person may seem ‘bad’ – their actions are immoral, they don’t believe in Christ, they live an indecent life. Yet despite all this, we still cannot determine the state of their heart. That is not for us to decide.
Jesus reads each of our hearts and knows us intimately. The ‘bad’ in our eyes that are collected at the end of the age may actually be good fish, but we didn’t realize it. God gives us the chance to choose him each day, and we don’t know when someone will repent and turn to him. Because of this, we must pray for all people, especially those far from Christ at the moment. Let us not judge others, for only God is the true judge.
Saint of the Day
St. Ignatius of Loyola: 1491 – 1556
“Go forth and set the world aflame.”
St. Ignatius of Loyola
The Healing Word 