August 5, 2001

"This is how it is with those who pile up riches for themselves, but are not rich in God’s sight."

This week I read again the book "The Old Man and the Sea". Ernest Hemingway wrote this novella in 1952 and it played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for literature. This is a remarkable book of great simplicity in language and a powerful story of a Cuban fisherman fighting with a giant fish far out in the Gulf Stream.

The fisherman "was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail ".

The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him and he said he would go with him again. "No" the old man said," You are with a lucky boat. Stay with them.

Early the next morning when it was still dark the old man prepared his boat.

It was such a beautiful morning, sunny sky, bird up in the air circling and flying fish sail over the surface.

"Who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. My big fish must be somewhere. Today I will go far out."

The old man talked to himself. "But since I am not crazy, I do not care," he said aloud. "And the rich have radios to talk to them in their boats and to bring them baseball." Now is no time to think of baseball, he thought. Now is time to think of only one thing. That which I was born for. There might be a big one around that school, he thought. Today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well. Just then, watching his lines, he saw one of the green sticks dip sharply. He could let the line run through his fingers without the fish feeling any tension.

"Come on" the old man said aloud. "Make another turn. Just smell them. Aren’t they lovely? Eat them good now and then there is a tuna. Hard and cold and lovely. Don’t be shy, fish. Eat them. Maybe he has been hooked before and he remembers something of it.- All right. Are you ready? Have you been long enough at the table?"

The fish took it. He just moved away slowly and the boat began to move off.

"I wish I had the boy," the old man said aloud. "I am being towed by a fish. Thank God he is traveling and not going down."

After four hours later the fish was still swimming steadily out to the sea, towing the skiff and the old man. The fish never changed his course nor his direction all that night as far as the old man could tell from watching the stars. He lost the glare of Havana.

Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for!

"Fish," he said, "I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends."

He rubbed his cramped hand against his trousers and tried to gently stretch his fingers. But they would not open.

The old man had seen many great fish. This one was the biggest fish that he had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard of.

"I am not religious," he said, "but I will say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys that I should catch this fish, and I promise to make a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Cobre if I catch him. That is a promise."

The sun was raising the third time since the old man had put to sea and the fish started to circle. He rigged the harpoon. He killed the fish bigger than his boat and lashed him alongside. Then the second war began. Against the sharks. The old man was armed with harpoon and knife and oars. He killed many. Maybe they are more intelligent than I am, but I am better armed, the old man thought.

"It is silly not to hope, he thought. Besides I believe it is sin. Do not think about sin, he said. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it. I have no understanding of it and I am not sure that I believe in it. Perhaps it was a sin to kill a fish? I loved him when he was alive and I loved him after. If I love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more? You think too much, old man, he said aloud.

After three days of battle the bloody fingers and the pain all over the body and the hunger was just terrible.

And the sharks? Their attacks never ended. They destroyed the big fish. His fight was useless. Finally there was nothing more for the sharks to eat.

The old man sailed into the little harbor with the skeleton. The great fish was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide. The old man was starving and could hardly breath. Than the old man was taken care of by the young boy.

The Nobel Committee realized the symbolic meaning of this novel.

Jesus said to the Rich Fool: "This very night you have to give up your life; then who will get all these things ----

This is how it is with those who pile up riches for themselves but are not rich in God’s sight."

To Martha, Jesus also said: " Martha, Martha! You are worried and troubled over so many things, but just one is needed. Mary has chosen the right thing, and it will not be taken away from her."

The right thing is to put one’s life to God and trust in Him. It is to listen to Jesus and follow His words. If you do, you will have a greater treasure than anything else.

Amen.

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