Jesus said to the crowds: 47 “The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.

 

At that time Jesus said to the crowds: 47 “The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled the net up onto the shore, sat down and gathered the good fish into baskets, but threw the bad ones away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age: The angels will come out and separate the wicked from the righteous, 50 and throw the wicked into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” 52 Then Jesus added, “So then every teacher of the law who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” 53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he left.

—The Word of the Lord. Reflection This parable is found only in Matthew and is very similar to the parable of the wheat and the tares. It also shows, in general, the patience of God and the impatience of those who want everything to be transformed at all costs. God respects the time of men. The context refers to the end of a working day. For fishermen, there is no other goal than to catch many good fish. The worst happens when they catch nothing (cf. John 21:3). The reference to the “good fish” means men and women who seek, in their daily lives, to do God’s will. They are those who put God first, those who are always in the Lord’s sight. On the other hand, the “bad fish” indicate those who, disregarding God’s will, give in to their own desires, their ideals and, in addition to acting against themselves, make their lives instruments of trouble for others, causing them terrible harm. The so-called “evil fish” are also those who practice all sorts of envy, discord, slander, division, selfishness, corruption and exploitation of their fellow men and of nature. The text answers what the result will be for those who live doing evil: the fiery furnace, an image taken from the city garbage dump, where the waste is continually burned; there is a permanent fire there to burn everything. In Israel, it is a valley called GEHENNA, where, in the time of the kings, there was a furnace even for sacrificing to false gods, such as Moloch, for example. This image indicates hell, the state of those who despised good, of those who abandoned the Word of God, of those who made choices for themselves. The burning fire becomes a symbol of exclusion and condemnation. In the end, what happens to those who have abandoned life in communion with God is the result of self-exclusion, of self-abandonment. God does not exclude anyone and does not want this to happen, but respects each person’s freedom of choice. To deny that condemnation exists means to deny one's own freedom of choice. God made us free to say yes to Him, but unfortunately, the word no was added by human limitations. Hell is certainly not an end, because our only END is God. END in the sense of the supreme objective, the purpose of our existence. Hell is not a place, but a state of mind; it is a situation that will not be undone in the life of those who freely disregarded the salvation offered by God; it is not a material fire, but a burning in the soul, an immeasurable anguish, a desperate loneliness, a profound lack of meaning, an emptiness without limits, an absurd desire to die without any conditions for death, a tremendous hatred of oneself, but without conditions for self-destruction. As for the doctor of the Law, comparing him to the father of the family, Jesus teaches that the education of children is done through the transmission of everything good that the parents have learned in life. Children learn from the wisdom of their parents. The same should be done by the doctors of the law. They have studied the Law of God, they have learned the truth about God from the Old Testament, they are experts in the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament. Should they eliminate all of this after their encounter with Jesus? That is not what Jesus wants. On the contrary, they should conceive of all their learning as preparation for the NEW that they have just discovered, in order to better understand the New Testament and to remain firm, firmly rooted in the “old and new” things, that is, in the Old Testament and its fulfillment in the New Testament, through Jesus Christ who, once encountered, does not despise the Law and the prophets, but preserves and fulfills them in the continuity of God’s plan fulfilled absolutely in Christ.