Sunday January 26th: 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Francis Parish | February 24, 2020, 8:28 pm | Reflections
In today’s Gospel from Matthew 4:12-23 we hear of Jesus as He begins His ministry in Galilee. “From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'” It is at this time that Jesus began inviting the disciples to come follow Him. Stopping at a boat to speak to two fishermen, “Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew”…”He said to them, ‘Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.'” And the two dismissed him as they were busy fishing right? No! What did they do? “At once they left their nets and followed HIm.” Jesus continued until He came upon two more brothers who were “mending their nets” with their father. And what did they do? “They left their boat and their father and followed Him.”…”And their father!”
At this point in Jesus’ ministry He would not have been well known and we don’t know whether or not either of these men had even seen Him before. Yet they dropped everything and followed Him. This Gospel is such a great reminder to us in thinking about our priorities in our lives. Of course we do not have Jesus walking up and asking us to follow Him but we do have many opportunities where if we take the time to listen, we may hear or feel Him calling us to respond in some way. The questions we must ask ourselves is, first, are we listening? Do we have an open dialogue with God to where we would even have the opportunity to hear Him call us? Then, how are we prioritizing our lives in such a way that when we do hear His call, we will respond? With the busy lives we live it is too easy to forget that God has done everything for us. He gave us life, air to breathe, food to eat and on and on. Do we remember all that He has done and does do for us or do we get too caught up in ourselves that we become disconnected?
Let today’s Gospel be a call back to prayer…a call back to contemplation and most importantly, a call to respond! Have a blessed week.