Follow me

Today’s topic is fishing! Have you ever gone fishing? Becoming a fisherman is not something you decide on the spur of the moment. The fisherman prepares himself well, he prepares the fishing rod or nets, the hooks and bait. He checks the weather forecast and decides upon the best place to go. If using a boat, he must see that even this is well equipped. Fishermen are not born overnight. One learns how to fish; one learns the best places to go fishing and learns the best time to go.

Jesus calls Simon and Andrew to become fishers of men. He makes this same call to us too. Like a fisherman who learns and prepares himself to go fishing, we too must learn and prepare ourselves to follow Jesus and be his disciples. Most importantly we need to know what message we are going to deliver. We find this message in the Bible. Becoming familiar with the Bible is important. In fact, some years ago Pope Francis declared the Third Sunday of the year (today) as the Sunday of the Word of God. We need to know Jesus personally, before we can speak to others about him. Lectio Divina, amongst others, is a good way to become familiar with the Word of God. Listening attentively to the Sunday homily also helps. If we want to delve deeper, we can find all that we need to know about our faith in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Christian formation meetings are also a great source of help.

Apart from knowing the message that we need to communicate to others, we also need to know our audience. As parents, your first duty is towards your children. You need to deliver Jesus’ message to them in a way that they can understand, in words which are appropriate to their age and understanding.

Fishing requires a great deal of patience. Sometimes you see fisherman, sitting down with a rod in hand for excessively long times, just waiting for a fish to bite their bait. Similarly, to pass on Jesus’ message we need a lot of patience. Our witness and perseverance may very well be the bait needed.

Jesus chose the apostles, the same way, that today, he chooses us. He did not choose the apostles because they knew the Scriptures off by heart, or because they spent their days, praying in the Temple. They were simple people, most probably, most of them were uneducated, all of them were sinners. It could be that what was different, was their answer to Jesus. When Jesus called them, they immediately left everything and followed him. Most probably we will think twice, because our commitments and activities have filled our time, and we may consider them more important than Jesus’ call.

Today’s Gospel starts with a command to repent. Jesus wants us to repent. When we repent, we are not just sorry for our sins, but this is also accompanied by a determination to change. A decision is taken to live in the way God wants to. The change that took place in the apostles’ lives was huge. They left all they had, to follow Jesus. We are not being expected to make such a radical change but there are surely areas in our lives which can be changed for the better.