Fishers of Men 2018

                                    3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

                                  

 

St. Andre Bessette

Everyone knows about Jonah, the reluctant prophet who was cast overboard by frightened sailors who believed that Jonah’s bad luck had put them in danger during a storm. Today, the word Jonah is still a symbol of bad luck. Nevertheless, in today’s reading Jonah brings good luck to the people of Nineveh. Jonah’s preaching convinced the people of Nineveh to depart from their evil ways and repent. As a result, we are told, the whole great city was saved from destruction.

Jonah has always been regarded as a precursor of Jesus who was sent by the Father to save the whole world from sin and destruction. Some even go so far as to say that the three days that Jonah supposedly spent in the belly of a whale or great fish were a symbol of the three days that Jesus spent between his own death and Resurrection.

In any event, in today’s gospel St. Mark wastes no time in preliminaries. He brings Jesus immediately on stage to announce the purpose of his mission. Like Jonah, he has a message of repentance to proclaim.

“This is the time of fulfillment.

The Kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Practically the first thing that Jesus does when he sets out on his public mission is to call disciples to follow Him and assist Him in His work of healing. In today’s gospel we see Him walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee when He sees Peter and his brother, Andrew. They were fishermen and He says to them, “come after Me and I will make you fishers of men.” We are told that immediately “they abandoned their nets and followed him.”

Then he saw two other fishermen, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and called them as well. They also “left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him.”

What strikes me most about this passage is how quickly these fishermen were converted. They did not require instruction or lessons in theology. They did not have to go through an extended course of study. They seemed to have asked no questions or made any inquiries about His background. From what follows in the gospels we know that these first disciples did not have a clear idea of who He was or what He was going to do. Like most of us when we embark on life’s great adventures, they did not know what they were getting into or where they would wind up.

There must have been something about Him that made them immediately give up their jobs and families to follow Him. There was something that led them to put their full faith in Him. They certainly could not have thought themselves worthy or able.

This passage reminded me of a book I once read about Brother Andre, a recently canonized Canadian saint, who had as little theological knowledge and book learning as his namesake, Andrew, in today’s gospel. Andre was a poor orphan who received practically no education beyond what his mother taught him before she died when he was only 12. Thereafter, he had to work to help support himself and help out with his brothers and sisters. Eventually, a local priest, impressed with his holiness, asked the Holy Cross Fathers in Montreal to take him in. Since he did not appear to be very intelligent, he could not even be made a brother, but they gave him a job as doorkeeper or porter at their school.

To make a long story short, within a few years people were flocking to the school because Andre had gained the reputation as a healer. Some would come on crutches but go away walking on their own, leaving their crutches behind. Many of these crutches can still be seen today in St. Joseph’s Oratory, the magnificent church eventually built to accommodate all the pilgrims who wanted to visit him. When Brother Andre died in 1937 over a million people filed by his casket.

I mention Brother Andre because during his whole life he denied that he was a miracle worker possessed with great healing powers. Like Jesus, Andre often used material objects like oil and medals in healing people but he also denied that these had any magical powers. He had a special devotion to St. Joseph and asked all who came to him to pray to St. Joseph but even that he regarded as only a means for them to enhance their faith in Jesus, the light of the world. Andre always gave the credit for all of his accomplishments to faith in Jesus Christ.

If Jonah is a precursor of Jesus, he is also a precursor of the first Apostles, Brother Andre, and even us. In today’s second reading from the Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul warned those early Christians that “time is running out,” and that they must change their behavior. We don’t know when the end of the world will come, but we do know that it came to an end for some of the members of our community last year. We also know that some of us will not make it through this new year.

For most of us New Year’s resolutions are a joke, but we should all consider ways to change for the better and get our priorities in order. Hopefully, in the days to come we will all have the opportunity to follow Jesus like those fishermen on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

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Reading 1. Jonah 3: 1-5, 10

Reading II. 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31

Gospel. Mark 1: 14-20 (fishers of men)

Behold the Lamb of God

                                    2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

                                  

 

Behold the Lamb of God
Florence, Italy

Today is the second Sunday in Ordinary time. Ordinary time signifies that part of the church year which is not part of any particular feast, like Christmas or Easter. We might ask what happened to the first Sunday in Ordinary time? Well, it was last week but the readings were superseded by the readings for the great feast of the Epiphany. Usually, the first Sunday in Ordinary time will celebrate the Baptism of the Lord. It marks the beginning of the public life of Jesus with his baptism by John the Baptist at the river Jordan. Today, we follow up on that important event.

But let's begin by taking a look at our today’s first reading from the book of Samuel. It tells of the calling of Samuel, one of the great figures in Hebrew history. Samuel had been placed in the service of the Temple to fulfill a promise his mother, Hannah, had made to the Lord. While sleeping he hears a call but thinks it is the priest Eli, his mentor. Eli tells him to go back to sleep but after a third call, he realizes that something special is happening. He instructs the young Samuel to respond if he hears the call again: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Once Samuel responded to the call, the Lord was with him, or, to put it another way, he was with the Lord.

Something similar happens in today’s gospel reading. After the Baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist points to Him and tells his own followers that Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Messiah, the Christ. Two of them, Andrew and another unnamed one whom scholars assume to be the gospel writer, respond to their mentor’s guidance and follow Jesus that very day. Almost immediately they realize that He is the Messiah. Andrew goes off to tell his brother, Simon, and bring him to Jesus. When he arrives, Jesus calls him.

“You are Simon, the son of John,

You will be called Cephas” –which is translated Peter.

Just as the life of Samuel would never be the same after he listens to and responds to the call of the Lord, the lives of Peter, Andrew, John and the other disciples would never be the same after their initial contact with the Lord. They have been called and they will have to spread the word to others. In the same way, we who have heard the Word have the same responsibility. We may not realize that we have been called, and it will probably not be as dramatic as the call to Samuel or Peter.

Jesus is going to embark on a mission that will end with his crucifixion and death. Fortunately, the sacrifice of Jesus is sufficient for us. Most of us will not have to face torture and a cruel death. But if we call ourselves followers of Christ, we will have to give up, in our own little way, our own lives in the service of others.

Husbands will give up their lives for their wives, and wives for their husbands. Both will have to sacrifice for their children. When they grow older, the children will have to sacrifice for their parents. Scripture tells us that people without spouses and children are called to even greater sacrifice. Not one of us is exempt. To save our life, we must lose it.

We all love sports but don’t we admire those players who sacrifice themselves for the good of the team? Even baseball has a special play called a “sacrifice” where a player gives himself up to advance a teammate.

So in today’s second reading when St. Paul tells the Corinthians that their bodies are members of Christ, he is not telling them to become plaster saints. He is calling them to a life of hard work and sacrifice in doing the work of the Lord. He is calling us to become disciples, and “take one for the team.” He asks,

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

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Reading 1. 1 Samuel 3: 3b-10, 15

Reading II. 1 Corinthians 6: 13c-15a, 17-20

Gospel. John 1: 35-42 (Behold the Lamb of God).

Epiphany of the Lord

                           Epiphany of the Lord

                 

Stained Glass Window
Assumption church
Fairfield, CT*

Epiphany is a Greek word which means manifestation or appearance.  Traditionally, the story of the "magi from the east" has been seen as a sign of the manifestation of the Lord to all nations

Today's first reading from the Prophet Isaiah, with its mention of caravans of camels and dromedaries bearing gold and frankincense, has from the earliest days of the Church been associated with the story of the Three Kings or Wise Men. The gospel account from St. Matthew only tells us that "magi from the east" followed the star "to the place where the child was." It doesn't say that there were three of them, or that they were kings. But tradition and art have added the familiar features to the story.  

We have three kings probably because of the three gifts--gold, frankincense, and myrrh--which are associated with royalty. In art, one of the Kings is usually portrayed as an old man, another is middle aged, while the third is young and beardless. They symbolize all the ages of mankind. Tradition called them wise men because the word magi came to mean "magician", or one familiar with the secrets and mysteries of nature. It is common to think of them as astronomers or astrologers because of the famous star that they followed to Bethlehem.

Although legends have embellished the story of the Magi, there is an historical core to their story. There were, after all, "magi" in the East. The members of the ruling priestly class of the Persian empire to the east of Palestine had for centuries been called "magi." They would have been familiar with the Hebrew scriptures and prophecies because so many Jews had emigrated to Persia in the centuries before Christ. Their journey to Bethlehem would have been over a thousand miles but it would have followed established and frequently traveled trade routes.

The reaction of King Herod to their news certainly fits what history has told us about that cruel despot. In those days it was common for rulers to kill anyone who might be a potential threat to their crown. Herod murdered his favorite wife--he had ten--and five of his own sons when he suspected that they were plotting against him. The slaughter of the Innocents which St. Matthew describes a little later in this chapter is certainly in line with Herod's character.

What is the importance of the visit of the Magi? Why is the Feast of the Epiphany one of the greatest in the Church's calendar?

We know that even after the Resurrection of our Lord the first converts to Christianity, even the Apostles themselves, had difficulty in understanding that the mission of our Lord was not just to the Jews. There was a great debate in the early Church where some argued that Gentiles had to convert to Judaism before they could be Christian. In St. Paul's epistles we see that this issue centered around the question of circumcision, that particular rite which signified one's membership in the nation of Israel.

In fact the very first Council of the Church was held at Jerusalem precisely to discuss this very issue. There St. Paul, inspired by his own vision of the Lord, argued that the message of Christ was for all mankind. As he says in the Letter to the Ephesians,

         it has now been revealed

         to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:

         that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body,

         and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus...

For Paul the Messiah promised to the Jews was to be what Isaiah called “a light to all nations.” St. Peter, as observant a Jew as St. Paul, will have his own vision in which he sees that what God has created no man can call unclean. Perhaps it is only after this question had been decided that the early Christians began to reexamine the words and life of Jesus for new meaning.

He came to call sinners. He cured the Roman centurion's servant. The Sermon on the Mount did not mention race, creed, or color. He praised the Good Samaritan and insisted that the foreigner was more a neighbor to the beaten Jewish traveler than his countrymen who passed him by on the road to Jericho.

They even discovered an incident at the very beginning of our Lord's earthly life which indicated that He had come as a light to all the nations. The "Magi" had come from the East to bring Him gifts and do Him homage. On the other hand, the despised ruler of the Jews had only sought to put Him to death. Apparently, Herod and his advisers couldn't even see the star that led the "Magi" to the child.

The Christmas season comes to an end with Epiphany. The twelve days of Christmas are completed. Subsequently, we will begin to follow Jesus as He begins His public life. We will have a whole year to follow Him on His way to Jerusalem. A few years ago I found a wonderful Christmas card which said simply,

         Wise men still seek Him.

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* Image by Melissa DeStefano (click on image to enlarge)

Reading 1. Isaiah 60: 1-6

Reading II. Ephesians 3: 2-3a, 5-6

Gospel. Matthew 2: 1-12 (magi from the east).