Thursday, September 4, 2008

Setting out


The theme of new beginnings seems to be all round us. Not only children are starting new routines this week, but their parents also have to reaquaint themselves with the process of waking little ones, preparing them for the day ahead, getting them to their intended destinations ... and so much more.

This is also a time for discussion and vision about priorities that need to be set. Whether this happens around a table, in a boardroom, in a car while we frantically race from one place to another, or on the shores of a nearby lake as we soak in the summer weather which we know won't be around for too much longer, all of us need to take a moment to set course.

How fitting that the gospel passage proposed for today should speak of setting out into the deep. In the early days of this millenium, the Holy Father, John Paul II encouraged us all, with the words of today's gospel, to go into deep water. The Apostolic Letter which was published on the Feast of the Epiphany 2001 was entitled Novo Millenio Ineunte (At the beginning of the new millenium). Characteristic of his pastoral style, he called all faithful to accept this new beginning with abandon, to embrace it as a gift from the Lord, and to discover the riches that Jesus revealed to the fishermen on the shore of the Sea of Geneseret when he called them to 'put out into the deep'.

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