1/26/2014 – 3rd Sunday ordinary time – Isaiah 8:23-9:3; Matthew 4:12-23

      Sometimes, when we hear a passage from Scripture, with certain names and locations, we might not know what its trying to tell us.   From Isaiah, a reading that’s quoted in today’s Gospel, we hear of the lands of Zebulun & Naphtali, of how they were filled with darkness.  As ancient Israel gained wealth and prestige, many of its leaders tried to make alliances with foreign lands, often taking them away from God.  Zebulun and Naphtali were 2 of the original tribes of Israel; they were among the first lands in Israel to fall to foreign powers.  Due to their location in the northern kingdom, they were subjected to many power struggles with their neighboring states, culminating in their exile by the Assyrians in the year 722 BCE. 

      For a people who had turned away from God on many occasions, who had been conquered by oppressive foreign powers & subjected to hunger, brutality, and slavery, we can imagine it would be difficult to have hope in this darkness that seemed to have no end.   Yet, Isaiah announces that God is there for them as a shining light.  Isaiah sees the light of God as a present reality, even in the midst of problems & struggles, taking away their anguish & dispelling darkness.  Isaiah called the people to repent & to trust in God, reassuring them that God’s power has brought light to their dark world.

       This passage is quoted in the Gospel of Matthew, showing Jesus as the fulfillment of the light that God has brought to his people.  There are many ways we Catholics experience the light of Christ in our world: in God’s holy word, in the Holy Eucharist, in the way we see God in our interactions with others, and in works of mercy and justice.  When the priest or Eucharistic minister proclaims “the body Christ” to us as we receive the host, Christ comes into our lives, nourishing our bodies & our souls in a special way.   We receive the light of the Body of Christ – we become the light of the Body of Christ.  As a seminarian, I remember the rector of our seminary telling us seminarians that we must foster a deep devotion in our hearts to the Eucharist & to the presence of Christ that is there in order to make it through any difficulty or struggle that we might encounter as priests.  And I can testify that my devotion to the Eucharist has indeed helped me many difficult times as a priest and as a lay missionary.

      But we have to do more than experience the light of Christ in the Eucharist and within our liturgy.   We must take the light of Christ out into our world – we must truly live the Eucharist & all that it means to us as Catholics.   In our society today, many look down at organized religion and at our Catholic faith, seeing us as being out of touch with society and not relevant to what is going on in people’s lives.  It’s common for many young people in our modern world to say that they’re spiritual but not religious, implying that belonging to an organized religion is a bad thing, and implying that being spiritual does not really have a strong relationship with being religious.  However, many of these statements are made out of ignorance.  Our Catholic faith tries to be very relevant to what is going on in our world today; it tries to dialogue with our secular world and to have an impact on our world on many different levels. Look at Pope Francis and how much interest his words and his example have been generating, even with people who are not particularly religious.

      Look at the words Jesus uses when he calls his first disciples out of their daily lives  - “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.   It is interesting the words Jesus uses.   He doesn’t tell them he will make them “proclaimers of God’s holy word” or “emissaries of God’s kingdom.”  He doesn’t tell them that they will become “disciples of the Messiah” or “heralds of Good News.”  He tells them that they will be “fishers of men”.  He puts them in direct relationship with their brothers and sisters – he calls them to evangelize and to call others to the faith.

      Recently, some of us in the parish have been reading this book called – Rebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church.  It is the story of a Catholic parish outside of Baltimore that details a 10-year journey of trying to engage people as disciples of Christ.  According to this book, the parish decided that a primary goal it has is to form disciples of the faith, to help its members live out their vocation as disciples.  It is an interesting book that I have been reading along with members of our parish council, our staff, and some couples I have met with. How are we being fishers of men at our parish?  And how do we live out our vocation as Christ’s disciples?  Do we see ourselves primarily in our secular vocation in life, whatever it may be – as a teacher or doctor, as a nurse or a banker, as a lawyer or police officer?  Or does each one of us here see ourselves as a disciple of Christ as a vocation we are living out in our daily lives, as a fisher of men for Christ?  Jesus calls us as his disciples, just as he called Simon and Andres, just as he called James and John. Do we hear that call in our lives?  And how are we responding?