I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF SOULS

Mark 1:14-20

Our first reading today is the story of the prophet Jonah. I am sure you remember the part of Jonah’s story that is not told in today’s reading. Jonah was sent by God to bring the message of repentance to Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire, the empire that had conquered and colonized the kingdom of Judah, looted and destroyed the Temple, and carried Jewish people to exile. And probably that is why Jonah didn’t want to go. Maybe he was afraid or he didn’t want to preach into that sinful city. He tried to disobey God, but at the end, he found himself preaching the Good News.

And in the gospel, Jesus is calling his first disciples. He is walking around and he sees fishermen and he calls them. “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Like Jonah in our first reading, these are ordinary human beings who are called to do the work of God. When we think of the mission ahead for these fishermen, when we look at the work of preaching the good news that these fishermen are going to do, then we might say: this was a wrong choice. These are ordinary and simple people. We might think Jesus would have picked some influential people to be His top leaders — a great orator, a lawyer and perhaps a great civic leader. But that’s not what He did. He started with these four simple fishermen, the way God sent this disobedient Jonah; all with little education, maybe even illiterate. 

They did not study in some known schools and colleges; they were not drawn from aristocracy; they were neither learned nor wealthy. They were fishermen. That is to say, they were ordinary people. However, these four men answered his call — not hesitantly, but instantly and without looking back. They left their possessions and followed Him. Both the disobedient Jonah in our first reading and these 4 simple apostles illustrate how the world can be changed by ordinary people.

You may have no outstanding talents, you may have neither the gift of organization nor the power of speech — but because Christ has entered into your life, it makes all the difference. A person should never think so much of what he or she is, but think more of what Jesus Christ can make of him or her. Do not underestimate yourself, because you came from the hand of God, each one of us here, man or woman, young or old, beautiful or not, rich or poor, we all came from the hand of God. And God does not make junk. In the book of Genesis we are told that after He created the sun, the moon and the stars, the animals and the plants, man and woman, He looked at them and saw that they were very good.

And so Jesus’ call is addressed to us today: Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. Are we ready to leave everything and follow him? Christ Himself commissions every Christian to a ministry of love and justice by virtue of his/her baptism and confirmation. Vatican II says: “Incorporated into Christ’s mystical body through baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit through confirmation, all Christians are assigned to the apostolate by the Lord Himself” (Apostolicam Actuositatem no. 3). 

It is Jesus who enables us; it is him who makes us worthy. The Disobedient Jonah can grow into a great preacher. The fisherman can grow into a fisher of souls. We too can be transformed. We can move from being self-centred to being God-centred; we can move from being self-seeking into seeking the glory of God and the benefit of humankind. In the 2nd reading St. Paul tells us that the time is running out. If we are going to do something to make the world better, as did Jonah and the apostles, it is time to get started for time is short and there is no instant replay.