Many Who Have Regrets Don’t Turn To The Lord

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This week we hear some of the first words that Christ preached (Mt. 4: 12-23) and he is still making himself known to Jew and gentile alike.   The word metanoia in Greek means repent.  It has two aspects.  First is to regret an action or a sin or bad habit or all of the above and secondly, to turn to God and enter a new life, or a new way of being without fear or worries.  I regret many sins and more specifically, not being with my mom when she died, but I cannot live in regret.  I need to turn to Him who is the only one who can help me to live in a different way, in peace and knowing that God knows better than I.

God is always with us, especially at difficult moments and do you think you got through that crises on your own strength, or was God with you?  I see with the long illness of my mom that he was with her all the time.  You and I need to see how God is present with us all the time and that should be my only desire, the only bread that I need.  Everything else pales in place of this True Bread of life.

In the first reading we hear of the darkness that surrounded the Jews during their time of exile in Babylon.  It was a great humiliation for them.  Was God with them during this period?  Absolutely, he was with them in a special way as he is with you and me when things get more difficult.

John the Baptist is a forerunner of Christ.  He preaches before Jesus preaches and he dies before him as well.  John had been arrested, but it was not the hour for Jesus so he withdrew from the world and stayed by himself.  The word for withdraw is the original language is to be an anchorite, a hermit.  Jesus never relies on the world; he does not surround himself with an army, with a group of people that will protect him.  He surrounds himself with twelve ordinary people who are like you and me.

It is like a three part painting: John is handed over, Christ withdraws, and a new light dawns.  When John had his head cut off a great light illumined the darkness of that world.  In this new movie about an Austrian conscientious objector in WWII called A Hidden Life, people tried to convince Franz to sign the oath to Hitler.  Their argument is what are trying to do resisting; no one knows who you are and what you do will not change anything.  Just the opposite happened since by witnessing to his faith and not doing what he felt was wrong he was sent to the guillotine.  Many years later he was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI and has became a great light to many thousands of people.  Maybe it did not happen right away, but more and more people will know about this holy man and what he did and his example will give light to others to do the right thing.  Every saint, and every martyr, gives a bright light to a dark world.

Christ was walking about by the Sea of Galilee and he caught sight of two brothers.  It was not a momentary seeing of these men as you can tell from the tense of the verb; it was not a fleeting but a prolonged look at these men.  They were using a special net that had weights in it, which made the net sink immediately.  Perhaps Jesus noticed their dexterity and precision in handling their equipment and he called them to be his apostles.  He fished them out of the waters of death, as he did for us, or wants to do for us.

Jesus says to them: come behind me.  Come behind me, and I will make you fishers of men.  Don’t go ahead of me, stay behind me, says Jesus.  Be patient, wait for him, and he will show you and me how to fish for men and women.  We cannot follow Christ if we are lukewarm.  To get behind Jesus I need to have an adventurous heart, and a desire to encounter God and the way of living as a Christian.  Let us ask for that desire to see things, to see life, as God sees it.  Let us be more determined to not stay with my regrets, but to turn to him and live in a totally different way.

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