Fishing for faith in uncharted waters

Adrian Wright gazes out across the water, the engine of his boat humming contentedly in the background. Wallaga Lake, near Bermagui, is the largest lake in southern New South Wales, and plenty of fish swim beneath its calm surface.

“The thing is, there are so many different kinds of fish in all different places,” the fisherman says, casting a line far into the distance, where it breaks the water with a gentle splash.

“You can’t just sit back and expect to catch them. You need patience, persistence, resilience, preparation, skill, hope and faith.”

Back in Canberra, Archbishop Christopher Prowse is preparing for some fishing of his own.

“After the Archdiocesan Assembly, it is not enough to have welcoming parishes,” he said.

“We need invitational parishes who are ready to go out, like fishermen, and catch fish for Christ! We are to propose Jesus to all. Jesus commands us to put the nets out into the deep waters of our culture and hope for a big catch.”

“You cast your line, you wait, you repeat,” Adrian said, as his fishing rod bent sharply and the line pulled tight.

“Sometimes, you catch nothing; other times, you catch more than you can carry. You trust the catch will come, even if it takes a long time. It is about preparing as much as possible and trusting in an outcome you can’t foresee. Every time you get out there, it is a good thing.”

Sometimes, it is about venturing into deeper water and understanding many unique environments.

“You need to be able to adapt to situations to get the best result – targeting the right fish in the right conditions,” Adrian said.

“The basic way to catch a fish is to get a hook, put some bait on it, throw it out and hope something eats it. But what works for one fish won’t work for another. You might be fly fishing, swim baiting, or using plastics. Some fish might swim around the pier, in the higher part of the water column. If you’re fishing close to the bottom, you’ll never catch those ones. And then other fish are sitting at the bottom, so if you’re fishing the top, you won’t get them. You need to understand your fish behaviour.”

Adrian said fishermen often encounter resistance when a fish is on the line – they must be strategic, reeling in slowly or giving the line some slack.

“It might not be an instant reward, but it is worth the work,” he said.

The Archbishop, a long-time ‘fisher of men,’ said we are all left with a similar decision in our troublesome times when the fish seem to be found in other waters.

“Either we sit on the shore of life and mend and wash our fine Church buildings and institutions or we learn from the Faith of St Peter and evangelise afresh in unchartered waters but knowing Christ, the fisherman of us all, commands us to a ‘new’ evangelisation,” he said in his installation homily in 2013.

“Let us go out with courage and hope in the deep waters to new depths of evangelisation opening up in our times.”

“You can’t catch anything sitting at home,” Adrian said.

“That’s part of the attraction of fishing new waters. You never know what is around the corner. There’s always an element of the unknown. But you prepare as best you can, have faith, and get out there and do your best.”

“Whether you are fishing for people or fish, there are a lot of crossovers,” he continued with a grin.

“The important thing to remember is that on both counts, the best time to go fishing is always right now.”