Tuesday – St. Andrew    (revisited)

Gospel – Matthew4: 18-22

Answering the Call

“Jesus Boat”, Sea of Galilee

If you’re like me, your cellphone is permanently attached at the hip and you never go anywhere without it.  It’s our calendar, our camera, our documents and apps; it’s our email lifeline to the world. But in all its complexity, it is still plainly and simply a phone.   And every day it presents us with choices – do we answer the phone, do we recognize the number!

It’s a process we are all familiar with.  The phone rings; is the number familiar?  If it isn’t, I regularly ignore and decline the call.  If I recognize the number, then it’s more complicated.  I can choose to answer it or I can deliberately decide I don’t want to talk to this person.  A simple call but so many options!

We commemorate today the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, brother of Peter, patron saint of fishermen and singers, of Scotland and Russia.  He was martyred on an X-shaped cross known today at St. Andrew’s cross.

The Gospel today relates Jesus’ calling of Peter and Andrew on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. They were both fishermen living in Capernaum; they were living a settled life with a family and occupation.  And yet, at Jesus’ words, they dropped everything – EVERYTHING – and followed Him.  They answered the call, certainly not having a clue where it would all lead!

So that is my question today.  Your phone is ringing; God is calling!  Would you answer the phone?  Would you ignore it?  Or would you doubt who was calling?  What would you do?  Granted, God finds plenty of ways every day to call out to us.  But the question is still the same – would you answer the call or decline it?  Would you be too busy with life or too fearful of the possibilities or demands of the call?  That call may be a friend needing some advice, or the parish asking for volunteers or maybe just someone on the street asking for a couple of dollars.  Maybe it’ your own family asking for help with a crisis.  Do you answer the call?? 

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