Hey, Church fans! Sorry for the long break. Two things at play. First, in the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” category, Microsoft in their wisdom has decided to take a very simple process of trimming a video and make it exceedingly difficult and time consuming. Second, I have been pretty busy on Sundays between Masses when these things usually get done.
That said, I’m not preaching this weekend, but here is my column for the week. You can always get them on the parish website: https://www.st.patsak.org or our parish Facebook page: stpatsak .
Primed and Ready.
When I was Director of Vocations for the Archdiocese, I was always fascinated by the story of the call of the first disciples as depicted in the second part of today’s gospel reading. On the one hand, you have to admire the faith of the first disciples leaving everything to follow Jesus. At the same time, it does seem a little quick. In the real world, successful business owners like Peter, Andrew, James, and John do not simply just get up and leave everything, no matter how attractive or compelling this Jesus was. Also, we can read of several others (the rich young man, for example) who received the same invitation as they did and yet did NOT leave everything to follow him. There has to be more to the story.
Our insight comes from the Gospel of John (1:35). Here we see that Peter, James, John and Andrew were not just quietly going about their business before Jesus showed up in their lives. Rather, reading John it becomes clear that they were very active in their faith. They were expecting the Messiah and were anticipating his manifestation. They were waiting for him.
Their faith made them ready. So when Jesus does show up, they could respond in faith. I suspect that they had already said “yes” in their hearts. Only this interior disposition would make possible such a whole—hearted response.
The lesson for us is clear. We all want to be like Peter, James, John and Andrew. The key is to prepare ourselves interiorly so that when, through the Holy Spirit, Christ does call us to some work for the Church, either big or small, we can respond with all our heart, soul, and strength. Daily prayer is an essential element of this spirituality of vigilance. Only then can we “await the joyful hope and the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.”
Welcome Fr. Bill Hanrahan and Fr. Scott Garrett! Fr. Bill will be covering for me while I am out of town getting a little post-Christmas R&R. Fr. Scott will be sharing with us how we can support his mission to bring the gospel to the far western reaches of the Archdiocese. See you in February!