January
22, 2006
Abandoned
Nets
Open
House
January is the perfect time and the worst time to have a school open
house. It’s the worst time because in the past years our Open
Houses have been snowed out. The students, faculty and staff of our
school worked hard to prepare a welcome for all, only to see the weather
crash their efforts.
But we try again this year and though we don’t know what the weather
will be like next Sunday, we do encourage you to visit our school for
the Open House which celebrates Catholic Schools week. Many people know
about our excellent academic program (for example, for the students
who took the latest NY State assessment (5th grade Social Studies)100%
of our students achieved proficiency, 60% with distinction.) But come
and see for yourself what a modern,creative, community-minded Catholic
school is like today. It’s worth the visit. .
Census
Continues
Of the approximate 6,000 families we usually send mail to, we’ve
received completed Census booklets from over 2,000. So we’ve got
a ways to go.
Is your booklet in?
CollegeStudents
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e-mail Father Ralph:
Read Father
Ralph's Christmas Homily for 2005
Past Columns:
Jan 15: Everlasting Life
Jan 8: I'm not going to
jail..
Jan 1: Happy New Year
Dec 25: Christ
Will Come Again
Dec 18: Angel
Approaching
Dec11: Mary
For Us All
Dec 4:Smoothing
Rough Roads
More
Columns from 2005
Columns
from 2004
Columns from
2003
Columns from 2002
Most
of us probably do not have the experience of mending nets, as we see James
and John doing in today;s gospel. Rather, we’ve probably had recent
experience with mending strings of Christmas lights -- despite what the
package says, when one light goes out, lots of other lights go out too!
And it’s one of the despised jobs to have to repair these lights.
So if someone came along and said, “Oh just leave those lights and
come take a walk with me,” I assure you that I’d be the first
to follow.
So I’m not surprised that
James and John quickly abandoned their nets (and the tedious repair job)
to have an adventure with Jesus. But here’s the question that’s
come to my mind: Why can’t we abandon the nets of our lives? I mean,
we can find ourselves caught up in meaningless, repetitive, uncreative
behaviors (tv watching for example), and find ourselves at 40 or 50 or
60 saying “is that all there is?” We look back at our lives
and wonder whether we were meant to be something more than we turned out
to be.
The good news is that Jesus’s
call to abandon nets and to join him in a new way of living is never ending.
He calls us again today to go out into our lives and “fish”
in a new way. So being at mass today inspires and strengthens us to cast
away the stuff of the rat-race world, to pull up the anchors of negativity
that weigh us down, to lean hard on the rudders of our lives and steer
in a new and fulfilling direction.
Where would you like to sail off
to? What fulfillment do you dream that following Jesus will lead you to?
And what do we have to abandon to start living in new places? These are
some reflection questions we can live with in the days ahead. As the answers
come to us, we can discover new freedoms and joys and even that deep peace
we’re searching for. Jesus’ call to be a disciple is not enslaving,
but liberating. Trust Jesus when he calls you to follow him. Though you
might not know where he is leading, trust that because it is Jesus who
is leading, that you’ll arrived at the right place of blessing for
you.
