Today is the feast of St.
Andrew, the Apostle. Jesus is walking by
the Sea of Galilee, sees two brothers, Simon and Andrew, fishermen, casting a
net into the sea. He yells at them: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers
of men [people]” (Mt 4: 18-22). At once,
they abandoned their nets and followed
Jesus.
Were they nuts? They were,
probably, successful fishermen! What
happened to the boat and the net and the fish? And this guy who was simply walking by and
says “Come, foillow me. I will make you a different kind of fisher,” who was
he? Why follow him and abandon a business? And we know that Andrew and Simon
did not look back. They stayed with Jesus for three years and beyond, were at
the Last Supper, suffered through Jesus’ crucifixion by Romans who occupied their
country, witnessed his Ascension into heaven, were present at Pentecost when
tongues of fire came down from heaven and rested on them, and, filled with the
Holy Spirit, changed from cowardly men to bold proclaimers of the Word, of the
Resurrection and of the Kingdom of God in our midst, a Kingdom that Yahweh told
the Jewish people would never be destroyed.
So what happened? How
could this be, you ask? The fact is that
once we encounter Jesus personally, nothing in this world is seen in the same
way. The Real is not what the world offers,
though advocates of the world’s goods believe so and want us to believe so as
well. Our egos “chase success, power, a
good name, achievements, and all the other stupid things we race after. God
will always get…[us] on the run,” as He did Andrew and Simon (Rohr, Richard,
OFM, Jesus’ Plan for a New World,” St.
Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, OH, 1996, p. 38). As we chase after the things the world
offers, not that we do not need those things, “once in a while…[we] glimpse out
of the corner of…[our eyes] what really matters. Gotcha” (Ibid.)”
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