In Today’s Gospel, Mk 1:14-20, the lives of Simon, Andrew, James
and John were totally changed, turned upside down, if you will. They are fishermen steeped in that way of
making a livelihood, probably doing well from a business perspective. They leave their families and their business
and follow Jesus, who simply says to them: “Come follow me. I will engage you in another
form of fishing. Your bait: My Words, the Good News of salvation, the news of
another Kingdom not of this world, the royal kingdom promised to your
ancestors, a kingdom that will last forever.
And for whom will you be fishing? People of good will. People of faith,
the faith of their Father Abraham, people wandering in “the wilderness” of
their lives, hungering for the “Bread of Life” and Living Water.”
At our baptisms, each of
us was also called to follow Jesus, to bring people to the “Bread of Life” and
to Living Water, to bring people to Jesus and Jesus to people. We were called to be heralds of the Good News
that Jesus dwells among us in the Scriptures, in the Eucharist, comes down upon
our altars in the sacrifice of the Mass every second of every day somewhere in
the world. We are called upon to teach
our children that God is the true Treasure of our lives, that God is the one
who empowers us to do good, that God is the One who saves us from this world’s
idols and that what the world offers us as the answer to our unhappiness and
lack of peace are false promises. Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth and the
Life—that is why Simon, Andrew, James and John left everything to follow
Him.
“Come, I will make you a
different kind of person, not one seeking “fish” or that which the world says
you must have to be happy and powerful and above others but persons seeking the Truth, the Way, the
Life of the Kingdom that last forever!
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