Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
Reflecting on Matthew 4: 12-23
The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew, from the Church of Sant’ Apollinare, Ravenna, Italy
And so it begins. The Spirit hovers over Jesus, and announces his identity as God’s own Son. Soon afterwards, John is arrested and shut up in prison. It is time, the time marked out from the beginning of time. Jesus the Christ moves away from the comfortable Jewish neighborhoods of Nazareth and launches the Age of Grace in the Galilee of the Gentiles.
The people who walked in darkness now see a great Light. His name is Jesus, and he is living, and preaching, and healing among them. And he is calling them out of their boats into the greatest fishing adventure of all time.
Sometimes you just know that it’s time. Time to grow up. Time to move away. Time to put away childish behaviors, petty resentments, unhealthy habits, and immature ideas about God that keep you at a safe (but so unsafe) distance from the One who is God with us.
The distance between Nazareth and Capernaum was only 48 miles. Sometimes the greatest journeys we take are the shortest in distance, but in looking back we say, “Yes, that’s when my life changed forever.” Jesus knew it was time to stretch out his arms to every person, Gentile and Jew, to heal and console, to catch all creation in his safe embrace, and let anguish take wing.
In time, those healing arms would be stretched out on a cross. Did he know that when he left tiny Nazareth to catch Peter and Andrew and James and John in the net of eternity? He caught us too, of course. We live in gratitude for that, and hope to be his best catch ever.
What has been a significant time of transition in your life?
1977 I took religious instruction at St Rose of Lima, I met people that I still call friend I grew spiritually and emotionally. 1980 my father passed away and the love and support from this parish carried through the grief In 1982 my grandmother passed, we were close she had raised me. She was the one who first converted to Catholicism in the 1940s and she was the one who had formed my faith as a Catholic from the crib up, A week after she died, I started work as a houseparent at Laradon Hall a facility for the developmentally disabled, I work there for 24 years, I met my best friend Joe there, we have been friends for nearly 30 years. My mom passed in 1992 after a long illness from rheumatic heart disease. my friends from St Rose and my friends from Lardon Hall brought me through that grief. I guess what I’m trying to say there wasn’t that defining moment of transition. God puts me where I need to be and helps me build the support I need for next celebration or the next crisis He provides me the tools I need to survive. I guess what I am trying to say and not doing it so well is there are peaks and valleys in our life and God make His presence known when we least expect it. I don’t believe in luck, I believe Blessings. We all have to experience happiness,grief fear, anger and so on it is a part of growth But by faith we never have to do it alone. I was very sick and in the hospital a year ago. I spent 8 months in bed, I had curtain people who were suppose to be helping me, I found that they were doing some very illegal thing in my home while I laid sick in bed, And Joe came to Denver and helped me move here to California where I am safe. 30 years ago I became friends with someone who would remind that God always makes a way for me even if He starts the plan 30 years prior to the need.
Thank you, Becky for sharing your journey. It makes me reflect and pray.
Becoming a wife and mother has been a great transition full of blessings and growth. It has helped me become less selfish which still is a challenge at times, but the Lord definitely gently guides me along the way. I loved the last line “He caught us too…hope to be the greatest catch.” So true and as I reflect on the call to marriage, I hope my spouse continues to feel that “I am the greatest catch” as well. May God continue to pour his graces on all married couples as with His help they meet the challenge of being His loving presence to each other and the world. God bless