Matthew 4:12-23<\/a><\/p>\nJanuary 23, 2011<\/p>\n
Jesus calls Simon and Andrew and James and John to be disciples.<\/p>\n
What does it mean to be a disciple?<\/p>\n
In the response of Simon, Andrew, James, and John there is no discussion.\u00a0 There are no questions.\u00a0 All we are told is that they immediately left everything and followed him.<\/p>\n
That can be pretty hard to imagine.\u00a0 Can you imagine giving up your whole way of life to follow someone you have just met?\u00a0 What would it take to motivate you to do this?<\/p>\n
Well, what is it that Simon, Andrew, James, and John are responding to?\u00a0 We are left with the impression that this is their first time encountering Jesus.\u00a0 If that is the case, they have not heard him preach before or seen him do any miracles.\u00a0 Perhaps they have heard from others about him but it would seem doubtful to think 2nd hand information would generate such an immediate response.<\/p>\n
So, again, what are they responding to?<\/p>\n
They, the people in darkness (meaning the Roman rule) have seen a great light.\u00a0 Jesus is the light and Simon, Andrew, James, and John are immediately drawn to the light.<\/p>\n
In essence, they are not responding to the physical presence of Jesus.\u00a0 They are responding to the divine presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling within him.\u00a0\u00a0With their hearts truly open, they must sense that presence and are immediately drawn to it, without condition or reservation.\u00a0\u00a0Without condition \u2013 meaning they don\u2019t ask questions (immediately \u2013 the questions will come when they ask Jesus to explain the parables).\u00a0 They don\u2019t ask what they must believe to join.<\/p>\n
They sense the divine and it is what they seek.\u00a0 They don\u2019t even know who Jesus is yet but they are drawn to him.<\/p>\n
Put your feet in the place of theirs.\u00a0 Here comes this man that you don\u2019t really know and he says to you \u201cfollow me.\u201d\u00a0 Would you take him to be a nut and walk away?\u00a0 This would\u00a0be missing the divine presence in Jesus.<\/p>\n
Would you start asking questions?\u00a0 The most basic question might be \u201cfollow you where?\u201d\u00a0 Or you might ask \u201cwhat is it you believe in?\u00a0 Tell me what you think and if I agree with you then maybe I will think about it.\u00a0 (–> We all might have a lot of questions for God but are we only willing to be disciples if we like what Jesus has to say?)\u00a0 To be a disciple is to be a student of the teacher and learn what the teacher, who is Jesus, has to say and follow in his way.<\/p>\n
Would you say yes and immediately follow him? (–> Your heart is totally open to God and doing it his way)<\/p>\n
I think, well I hope, we would all like to be in the third category and say yes.\u00a0 If Jesus stood before us and we knew it was him we would follow him.\u00a0\u00a0But it doesn\u2019t seem to be that simple, does it?<\/p>\n
Writing to the Corinthians, Paul tells them that they should all agree on what to say, no divisions, and that they should all be united in the same mind.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Paul talks about how the people are saying \u201cI belong to Paul\u201d or \u201cI belong to Apollos.\u201d\u00a0 We identify our self by the church we attend.\u00a0 Here we\u00a0attend St. Michael’s, which is part of\u00a0Our Lady of the Lakes, and the Diocese of Rochester, and the universal Roman Catholic Church.\u00a0\u00a0While we identify who\u00a0we are by the church we attend, it is not divide us.\u00a0 We do so aware\u00a0that we are part of something bigger than just St. Michael’s.<\/p>\n
What are we to agree on?\u00a0 We can agree that Jesus is our Savior; that he died\u00a0for our sins and that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.<\/p>\n
As part of the Catholic Church most of the what we do at Mass is the same in every Roman Catholic Church in the world.\u00a0 But we\u00a0each are given different gifts to serve in different ways.\u00a0 As Paul writes to the Corinthians he will later speak of being members of the Body of Christ.\u00a0 Christ is the head of the body.\u00a0 But a body has many parts, head, arms,\u00a0hands, legs, and feet.\u00a0 Every part of the body performs a different\u00a0function but all the parts work together to form one body.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We each have different gifts.\u00a0 Jesus calls each of us to be his disciples according to the gifts we have been given.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Are you open to discovering God\u2019s will?\u00a0 Are you open to God\u2019s truth?\u00a0 It isn\u2019t as simple as it sounds.\u00a0 What do you need to do to follow Jesus?<\/p>\n
Peace,<\/p>\n
Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here is the text of my homily for today (January 23, 2011 – Third Sunday in Ordinary Time). 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A St. Michael\u2019s 5:00 p.m, 7:00 a.m. & 9:30 a.m Isaiah 8:23-9:1 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17 Matthew 4:12-23 January 23, 2011 Jesus calls Simon and Andrew and James and John to …<\/p>\n
Continue reading ‘The Disciple’s Response’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-6F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}