First Reading: Isaiah 8:23-9:3

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:10-13,17

Gospel: Matthew 4:12-23

 

Today’s Gospel passage recounts the beginning of Jesus’ Christ preaching in Galilee. Jesus leaves Nazareth, a village in the mountains, and settles in Capernaum, an important centre on the lakeshore, inhabited largely by pagans, a crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Mesopotamian inland. This choice indicates that the beneficiaries of the preaching of our Lord Jesus Christ are not only his compatriots, but those who arrive in the cosmopolitan “Galilee of the Gentiles”: that’s what it was called. 

 

Seen from the capital Jerusalem, that land is geographically peripheral and religiously impure because it was full of pagans, having mixed with those who did not belong to Israel. Great things were not expected from Galilee for the history of salvation. Instead, right from there — precisely from there — radiated that “light” on which we meditated in recent Sundays: the light of the Saviour Jesus Christ. It radiated right from the periphery.

 

Jesus’ message reiterates that of the Baptist, announcing the “kingdom of heaven”. This kingdom involves the fulfillment of the Covenant between God and his people, which inaugurates a season of peace and justice. To secure this covenant pact with God, each one is called to convert, transforming his or her way of thinking and living. This is important: converting is not only changing the way of life but also the way of thinking. 

 

What differentiates Jesus from John the Baptist is the way and manner. Jesus Christ doesn’t stay and await people, but goes to encounter them. Jesus is always on the road! Jesus does not only proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God, but seeks companions to join in his salvific mission. In this very place he meets two pairs of brothers: Simon and Andrew, James and John. He calls them, saying: “Follow me”. The call reaches them in the middle of their daily activity: our Lord reveals himself in the everyday circumstances of our life. Jesus makes his love felt in our heart; and there — with this dialogue with him in the everyday circumstances of life — he changes our heart. The response of the four fishermen is immediate and willing.

 

We, today’s Christians, have the joy of proclaiming and witnessing to our faith because there was that first announcement, because there were those humble and courageous men who responded generously to Jesus’ call. On the shores of the lake, in an inconceivable land, the first community of disciples of Christ was born. May the knowledge of these beginnings give rise in us to the desire to bear Jesus’ word, love and tenderness in every context, even the most difficult and resistant. 

 

May the Virgin Mary help us with her maternal intercession to respond joyfully to Jesus’ call, and to place ourselves at the service of the Kingdom of God.