24/01/2021
Readings for today
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jonah 3:1-5, 10;
1 Corinthians 7:29-31;
Mark 1: 14-20
We Christians should be the happiest people on earth. We know why we are here, we know where we are going and we know how to get there. There are trials and troubles which beset us on our journey; there are rough parts of the road and weaknesses in our human nature which often lead us off the right road, but we are not left to our own human resources. We have help from above to strengthen and comfort us on our journey. We have divine aids in the Church which Christ set us and we have the guarantee of our Good Shepherd that he will keep us in his fold or bring us back should we foolishly wander from it.
God’s call to discipleship, with the response of repentance, conversion, and renewal of life expected from each of us, is the main theme of today’s readings. No matter to what life, work, or ministry God calls us, He first calls us to conversion, to reform, to repentance – to the process of continually becoming new people. Those who are constantly being reformed by the Spirit will be able to follow, as true disciples, wherever God leads. All three readings today underline the absolute necessity of such repentance and ready response to God’s call.
The first reading
(Jonah 3:1-5) tells us about the prophet Jonah, whose response when God first called him and told him to go to Nineveh was to take ship immediately for the furthest point he could get to in the opposite direction! Why? We don’t know. Perhaps he was scared. Or perhaps it was because he hated the Gentile people of Nineveh and thought that they were not worthy of God’s gracious mercy. In any case, Jonah ran away. God had to halt Jonah in his flight, then give him a three-day “time-out” in the belly of that great fish, before the prophet was ready to accept the Lord God’s “second chance” to obey Him and go to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. Far from being hostile, however, the people and the King of Nineveh, promptly responded to God’s word as preached by His prophet, repenting in sackcloth with a fast — just on the outside chance that the Lord God ”might” spare them!
In the second reading (1 Corinthians 7:29-31), St. Paul urges the community in Corinth, and us, to lose no time accepting the message of the Gospel because Jesus’ second coming may occur at any time.
Today’s Gospel (Mark 1: 14-20) describes how Jesus entered Galilee and began preaching. Like John, Jesus also called for repentance. But Jesus added the Good News that the Kingdom of God was at hand. It still is, for where Jesus is, there is the Kingdom of God. Then Jesus called on his listeners to believe in the Gospel or the Good News of God’s love, mercy and salvation. When Jesus invited Simon, Andrew, James, and John to join him and help in his preaching and healing ministry, they promptly accepted his call, for discipleship is the only complete response a believer can make to that proclamation and invitation.
The two greatest aspects of discipleship in Mark are being with Jesus and sharing in his mission. Disciples are invited to be with Jesus on a great spiritual journey and to share in Jesus’ mission of proclaiming God’s Kingdom in word and deed. In describing the call of Jesus’ first disciples, today’s Gospel also emphasizes how we, sinners, are to respond to Him with total commitment, abandoning our accustomed attitudes and styles of life to follow Him in thought, word, and deed.
Call to make fishers of men: In the ancient world fishing was a metaphor for two distinct activities: judgment and teaching. “Fishing for people” meant bringing them to justice by dragging them out of their hiding places and setting them before the judge. And “fishing” was also used of teaching people, of the process of leading them from ignorance to wisdom. Both cases involve a radical change of environment, a break with a former way of life and entrance upon a new way of life. We are the fish, and what God promises us, who are dragged out of the water in the nets to die, is a Resurrection, a new life, a new family, a new future, all under God’s control, all within the Kingdom of Heaven, which has come near in Jesus. We have very little control over our own lives, but as fish caught in the net of God’s love, we can trust that we are under God’s control. We have to believe that being captured by God’s love, that responding to the command to repent and die to self, that being raised to a new life by God, is not only right for us, but is a message we need to share with the entire world. The disciples will be trained to do precisely what Jesus is doing right now: proclaiming the Kingdom, recruiting people for it, and drawing them into a community that experiences God’s reign.
1) We need to appreciate our call to become Christ’s disciples: Every one of us is called by God, both individually, and collectively as a parish community, to continue Jesus’ mission of preaching the Good News of God’s Kingdom and healing the sick.
2) We are called individually to a way of life or vocation: – a religious commitment (priest, deacon, missionary, religious Sister or Brother, marriage partner, or single person), plus a particular occupation rising from our talents (medicine, law, teaching, healing, writing, art, music, building and carpentry, homemaking, child-rearing ….). Our own unique vocation should enable us to become what God wants us to be. As St. Francis Sales puts it, we are expected to bloom where we are planted.
3) Our call, of course, begins with our Baptism and the other Sacraments of Initiation. It is strengthened through the years with the Eucharist and Reconciliation, healed and consoled by Anointing and, for those so called, made manifest in the sacraments of Matrimony or Holy Orders. The amazing truth is that God is relentless in calling us back to Himself even when we stray away from Him.
4) Let us be thankful to God for His Divine grace of calling us to be members of the true Church. Let us remember that it is our vocation in life as Christians to transmit Christ’s Light through our living, radiating Jesus’ unconditional love, mercy, forgiveness, and humble service to all in our society.
