The Memorial of Saint Peter Chrysologus
The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause you to hear my words."
Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he was making something on the wheels. When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Then the Lord's word came to me, saying, "House of Israel, can't I do with you as this potter?" says the Lord. "Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
Don't put your trust in princes, In a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.
Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the Lord, his God, Who made heaven and earth, The sea, and all that is in them; Who keeps truth forever;
"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some fish of every kind, Which, when it was filled, fishermen drew up on the beach. They sat down and gathered the good into containers, but the bad they threw away. So it will be in the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked from among the righteous, And will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Jesus said to them, "Have you understood all these things?"
They answered him, "Yes, Lord."
He said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been made a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a householder, who brings out of his treasure new and old things."
When Jesus had finished these parables, he departed from there.
Peter Chrysologus — "golden-worded" in Latin — was a fifth-century bishop of Ravenna whose preaching was so clear and compelling that the Church named him a Doctor. His gift was making the faith feel immediate, close, like something that actually touches our lives. That feels exactly right for what these readings are doing today.
Notice how the image of the potter's house isn't dramatic or otherworldly. It's a workshop. There's clay, a wheel, and a craftsman doing what craftsmen do — shaping, noticing a flaw, and starting again without frustration or disgust. What emerges from this scene is something almost startling in its gentleness: God doesn't discard what's marred. The potter reworks it. The same clay, a new form.
We carry this image into the Gospel's dragnet, and the contrast is worth sitting with. The net gathers everything — good fish, bad fish, all of it together. The sorting comes later. There's an honesty in this that resists our impatience, our desire to have everything resolved and categorized right now. The Kingdom doesn't work on our timeline. The separation happens at the end, not in the middle of the catch.
And then Jesus asks his disciples something worth asking ourselves: *Have you understood all these things?* They say yes. But the householder image that follows suggests understanding the Kingdom means holding both old and new wisdom — not discarding tradition, not clinging to it at the expense of what God is doing now.
On an ordinary Tuesday in Ordinary Time, these readings land somewhere practical: we are not finished. The clay is still on the wheel. The net is still in the water.
A few questions to carry through the day:
Where in your life might God be reworking something you've already written off as ruined?
What "old things" in your faith still carry wisdom you haven't fully drawn on?
Are you more anxious about the sorting — or more trusting of the Potter?