6 February 2022 – 5th Sunday in Ordinary time – Catholic Service Appeal for Diocese of Jackson – Luke 5:1-11

      In today’s Gospel, Jesus encounters Simon Peter and his fishing companions as they are washing their nets. He tells Peter: “Put out into the deep water – let down your nets for a catch.”  Yet, Peter explains that he and his companions, all experienced fishermen, had worked all night long and had caught absolutely nothing.  We wonder: Does Jesus know something that they don’t know?   But they trust him and they place their hope in him.  At Jesus' command, they lower their nets.  What comes up, but an abundance of fish - enough to tear their nets to shreds and sink their boats.  Here they are in the same place where they'd labored day after day, in an environment they knew well, in the place where they'd come up empty the night before, and they have a catch beyond all imagining. Today, as we hear this very vivid Gospel reading on the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bishop Kopacz presents to us the Catholic Service Appeal for the Diocese of Jackson for 2022.  

         We can only imagine the trust, faith, and hope that the disciples needed in order to cast their nets into the deep.  Our theme this year for the Catholic Service Appeal is: “Hope rising.” So much has changed in these last two years during the pandemic.  We Catholic parishes  have had to look at the way we present our Gospel message.  Just look at the sea of masks during Mass here at St Jude, and you can tell right away how much things have changed.  We now have a touch-less holy water font.  We now have a high-tech computer set up in our church by which we are able to stream our Masses on-line. Instead of hiking in Spain on pilgrimage these past two weeks as I had planned, I had to call off my trip and ended up in isolation, sick at home for ten days.  Yet, with all of these changes and challenges, we have maintained our faith in God and our belief in the Eucharist.  We still find encouragement and hope in our faith and in the Eucharist, even in the new ways we are evangelizing and presenting the Gospel message.  

         Our Catholic Service Appeal helps us fund different ministries and departments of our Diocese which are important components of our faith.  Funding seminarian education, mission parishes, retired priests, Catholic schools, faith formation, intercultural ministry, campus ministry, youth ministry, and programs of Catholic Charities are just some of the ways the Catholic Service Appeal reaches out here in the Diocese of Jackson.   We will now listen to a short recorded message from Bishop Joseph Kopacz about this year’s Catholic Service Appeal.