Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Word on this Word of God Sunday is very precious indeed. There is much similarity between the gospel and the first reading where God sends Jonah a second time to Nineveh. Do you remember the story? Jonah refused to go the first time and gets on a ship and then a storm arises, and he is thrown into the sea only to be swallowed by a whale and thrown up onto the shore near Nineveh. The first reading picks up the story of when the Lord asks him again to go and announce conversion to Nineveh or he will destroy that city. Finally, he goes, preaches, the people convert, and God does not destroy the city.
Jesus is like the new Jonah who does not resist the call to announce conversion and accepts the mission from his Father. Today we see Jesus walking along the sea of Galilee, preaching conversion and choosing his first disciples. He says, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” A priest who I follow a lot on YouTube (Fr. Eugenio Fernandez) was saying when he went to the Holy Land a few years ago and he was very moved when he was walking alone at the shore of Galilee. Everyone was having lunch, but he managed to get away and walk along the shore. He was thinking where he walked was where it all started, where Christianity all began, when Jesus chose these four disciples who were ordinary fishermen. When he was walking along this spot, he felt something wonderful as if Christ had come to look for him. I don’t know if you had an experience like this, but he knew it was the Lord who came for him at that time. He also was with the nets trying to fix them.
The gospel says that Jesus saw the two brothers, James and John, mending their nets because they were broken or damaged by fish. They had to fix them, or they would not be able to catch anything. This priest went on to say that it was like this for him when the Lord came to find him. What nets are you trying to fix today? No matter how hard you try to be happy with your family or your situation and to have a comfortable life and organize it in some way. And perhaps you notice when you fix one thing something else happens and you spend your life going from one place or one person to another trying to find joy, but you don’t manage. You don’t love.
These first disciples do not love and that is why Jesus chose them. Jesus is walking along the shore and saying, I want this one and his brother and that one and his brother since they cannot love. He picks the biggest losers: Peter and Andrew, James and John, those who cannot love. They were involved with their projects, with their lives as fishermen and Jesus sees them as he is walking along the shore.
This scene helps me a lot because I see that Jesus is looking for me where I am because often I am on the shoreline, which is a place that is in between. Water or the sea in the Bible often represents death and land represents life so the coastline is in between death and life. This is where we all are. We want to do good but, in the end, we do the evil we don’t want to do. We want to love but find that we cannot; we want to be faithful, but we often cannot. It is in this place where Jesus comes to each one of us, to love us, to choose us.
I say that Jesus came to love us because the gospel uses a beautiful expression: Jesus noticed them, he ‘saw’ them, Andrew and Peter. And a little later on he ‘saw’ the sons of Zebedee, James and John. Jesus sees them first and that look of Jesus, I imagine, must have captivated them. It was that look that invites you to leave everything. It is a look of love. St. Pope John Paul had this look that seemed to go through you.
You look at what you love. Jesus is looking down from the cross, he is watching from heaven at the right hand of the Father, and he is looking at you today. The one who loves looks at what he/she loves. If you love your wife, you will look at her. If you love money, you will look at it. When you argue with your spouse you stop looking at her or him. You don’t look at them because you are fighting and perhaps in a certain way you don’t love them at that moment. After a discussion you are able to reconcile and then you can look at him/her again. Tell me what you look at and I’ll tell you what you love.
I will tell you what Jesus is looking at today; he is looking at you, not as a policeman to correct you or to give you a ticket. He is looking at you because he loves you and says something very beautiful: follow me. And I will make you fishers of men. He says the same to the other two brothers, James and John. They left their father in the boat and followed him.
To follow him is to go behind, to stand behind Jesus Christ. It is not a difficult mission. It is not that he sends you ahead and says see what you can do. He says that he will do it. You only need to go behind Christ with eyes fixed on him. You are going down a road that is well worn, well-constructed. You are not going to blaze a trail. You are going on a road that is already built. It is the way of the cross and it is already done. The Lord will show you how to love as he has loved you. This is the key to the Christian life, and it will make you fishers of men.
Christ is saying: I will make you fishers of men. I will make you a holy man or woman. I am going to make you capable of loving what you love. I will do it; you don’t need to do anything. When you think that it is you then you are on the wrong track. This is not faith. The Lord always leads the way, and he will make you a fisher of men. He will take you out of death and you will bring others out of death. Who will teach you to do this? Jesus Christ.
Is there some kind of suffering or death that you have today? Is there a slavery or a boredom that has you stuck or some sin that you cannot break? Christ is saying that he will take you out. He is going to fish you so that you can then fish others. You will then be able to fish your spouse or your mother-in-law or your children. How will you or your children change? When you do! The problem is not your spouse or your father or your teenager. The problem is you, if you have not changed, if you have not encountered Christ. He wants to convert you so that you can convert others. He wants to help you love your spouse as he/she is.
You have already been fished or caught by the love of the fisherman. The Lord has already caught you and now you will be able to catch others. I have already been caught by the Lord. Sometimes I forget it and my sins or my projects or my selfishness gets in the way. Christ has caught me and invites me to be a fisher of men so that He can take men and women out of death in which they are living. He does this by loving them. That is all he does. So, pray for them, pray for the world, for your husband or wife, for your children and ask to be able to understand them in their weaknesses and not by making demands of them. Little by little the Lord is doing a great mission, and the path is already here and done by God. Let us ask the Lord: help me, Lord, help me to come to you and be with you today.