Monday of 1st week, uneven numbered year
“Jesus preached the Gospel from God, saying, ’The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Gospel.As he was walking along by the Lake of Galilee Jesus saw Simon and Simon’s brother Andrew casting a net in the lake-for they were fishermen.And Jesus said to them, ’ Come after me and I will make you fishers of people.’ And at once they left their nets and followd him.”
The prophet John the Baptist went off, Jesus came with a word that was even more powerful : ’ The time has come! ’ Herthe designated time is the’ kairos’, that is the particular moment of God’s favour and action. This first declaration simply talks to us about our history, our lives aren’t just given up by chance, but exposed to God’s eruption and this gives them their meaning. It is after John the Baptist’s arrest that Mark places Jesus at work in his Gospel. ’Convert and believe in the Good News.’ The KIngdom of God is Peace, Justice and Love. It has to take on life in our humanity.For that,we need to leave the former life. It is God’s goodness which touches us and pushes us to conversion, which means that it is up to each one of us to change his way of thinking, of seeing the world and living in it and to accept to be turned around, knocked over, and transfromed by the goodness of God!
“Going on a little further, Jesus saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they to were in their boats, mending their nets. At once he called them.”
"The Kingdom of God is near’ Jesus erupts in time, which is the coming of the Kingdom of God thanks to him. It is a matter of this good and joyful news that the liturgical ’Ordinary Time’ announces : In his Goodness,God takes his first steps towards us. The One sent by the Father is here. He is at work in the world, Jesus asks us to follow him, to trust in the One sent by God. Faith is proposed to us as a lever of transformation! ’Believe in the Good News! ’ It is so good to encounter Jeus walking on our paths, the mystery of God is said to bein our midst, through the humanity of Jesus! ’The kingdom of God is near! ’ He is there in the welcome we make to Him. By his presence, Jesus reveals the Kingdom of God. This announcement of accomplished times, of the
inaugurated kingdom and the call to conversion are the words and gestures of Jesus : God is good! Jesus comes from the goodness of God, he tells of God’s Goodness, he erupts in our time, his sollicitude and thoughtfulness, his transforming power! Jesus is the Splendid Shing forth of the Father’s glory, the perfect expression of his being, He is amongst us as one of us.
“And leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the men he employed, they went after them.”
The Apostles can leave their father of the earth and leave following Jesus who will never be lacking to them; Simon, Andrew, James and John are there associated in Jesus’ mystery ; simple sinners whose vocation is not necessarily denied, they will continue to fish but their existence is completely turned around! ’ Come to me and I shall make you fishermen of men!’ They have a surprising mission: to drag man from darkness and propose that they move forward in the world, in a new world, that of the grace of God. Thus the Apostles will reclothe the new man. ’I shall be for you a father, he will be for me a son.’ Jesus the Master of the harvest! This is precisely where our faith is sollicitated ; here we are invited to give our confidence to a message that speaks to us of God, who is different from everything we could imagine or would want to imagine, a God who is close, a God who comes to us in his grace, a God who comes and changes our lives and who reveals himself in being close to us, by his sollicitude, transforming gestures and words! He comes into our human history, he manifests the benevolent authority of God against all the powers of death, He is at the Heart of the Good News. This invitation is a promise anchored at the same time in mens’ daily lives and in the radical newness of the life that the Gospel implies.