Dropping Everything

Dropping Nets

Gospel for the 3rd Sunday in OT: Matt 4. 12-23

If you are a follower of my blog,you'd have noticed I went AWOL for a couple of weeks. My wife and I took a trip to the islands of Maui and Kauai in the beautiful state of Hawaii. I heard we hit a warm spell back home, and was pleased to hear it- it wasn't as bad of a shock to our bodies upon our return!

There were certainly some wonderful highlights and memories. One which I'll never forget is hearing the sound of whale song while scuba-diving! But for both of us, the lasting memory will be the time spent with friends who were there- isn't it always about relationships?

There was one vivid image from the trip that brings us to a reflection on Sunday's Gospel. While walking on the beaches of paradise, Shirley and I noted a strange, but a far too common behavior- people plugged into their phones, I-pods, etc. Teens, middle aged, seniors- it didn't matter. Now I understand from my own running experience the motivation music provides, but many of these people were strolling on the beach, or lying in the sun.

So, despite the fact the God provides us with the amazing soundtrack of crashing waves, pounding surf, and the call of birds overhead, we insist on blocking it out with our own devices. 

It reminds us of how distracted we really are. Even, in our leisure, we need to be plugged in.

We can't drop our nets.

And now consider our everyday lives of work, caring for home and family, and all our busyness. It's all good, and it is what we are called to do.

The problem is we don't recognize that it is a call.

In Sunday's Gospel Jesus sees Peter and Andrew at their work, "for they were fishermen". A hard job, but one that would provide food for their families. Jesus invites them to follow him - a completely radical move, since in Jesus' day disciples sought out a rabbi, not the other way around.

Immediately they left their nets and followed him. It is one of the most awe-inspiring lines of the Gospel. How could they just leave everything and follow a teacher they did not know? Certainly they did not see anything "profitable" in following an itinerant preacher. Where were they going? For how long? Would it be dangerous? What would people think?

It is the mystery of VOCATION.

 When we consider our own life in Christ, we need to be reminded of key aspects of our vocation:

1. We have been called. It is the great gift of our faith to know that we have not sought God, but that God sought us first. Most of us in the Catholic Christian tradition received the waters of baptism as infants, but we come to recognize our call over and over again in our lives. It is one of the main reasons we celebrate Easter every year.

2. To accept the call, we must drop everything. Not in the exact same way as the apostles, although some do- think of the canonized saints in our Church. The point is we need to drop what we think is the reason for our work and our busyness, and realize that we are called to live with Jesus. The call is really a call to conversion, to turn our lives around. To bring Jesus fully into our lives, means to "drop our nets". It means to drop our egos and let Him in!!

3. Our lives are not about us any more. Those of us who are married recognize the great joy, and the great loss, that came with our new lives. We lost that "freedom" of being single, and found to our great joy, that our lives were now fuller in union with our spouse, and we were even more "free" (please don't take this to mean that the married state is "better" than living a single life- it's just a different way of living out our call). It is the same for all those who raise children- the marriage changed completely and the love and sacrifice became more intense. Why? Because parents now realize their lives are not about themselves alone. 

This is the essence of vocation. "I will make you fishers of people". Jesus calls us with our skills, our failings, to bring people to himself. If we are a parent, a teacher, a banker, a politician, a priest, a waiter, a retiree... no matter what we do or who we are, we are made for others. To be in union with them and with God, right now and forever.

So drop everything. Come. Follow Him.