"COME AFTER ME."

3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. Matttew 4:12-23.

AIM: To challenge the hearers to respond to the Lord=s call today.

A cardinal was visiting a community of Carmelite nuns in Italy. After celebrating Mass for them, he asked the Mother Superior if he could see how they lived. Carmelite nuns are enclosed. They don=t leave the cloister. And visitors talk to them through a grille. The cardinal=s request violated their rule. But when a cardinal asks, you don=t say No. So the Prioress asked one of the nuns to show him round.

They visited the refectory, where the nuns sit on wooden benches without backs to eat their simple meals off bare wooden tables. The cardinal saw one of the cells where they sleep: a small room furnished with a narrow bed, a table to serve as a desk, and a hard wooden chair; a single light bulb overhead and a gooseneck lamp on the table. Instead of a basin with running water there was a large washbowl on a stand, and on the floor next to it a large crockery jug. The nun explained that water was brought from the bathroom down the hall.

At the end of the short tour the nun led the cardinal up a narrow stairway to the flat terraced roof above, furnished with hard benches and a railing all round. AOn feast days ,@ she explained,@we can come up here, if the weather is fine, for our recreation period.@ The view was beautiful. Across a valley they could see a magnificent villa surrounded by formal gardens and several fountains. It was summer. A gardener was cutting one of the hedges. Children were frolicking in the swimming pool. A couple were playing tennis on one of the two courts. 

The cardinal turned to the nun who was showing him round. AHow long have you been here in Carmel, Sister?@ he asked her. AI entered twenty years ago next Easter,@ she responded. ASister,@ he said, Aif the young man of that house had asked you twenty-one years ago to come and live there with him there as his wife, do you think you would be here today?@

AYour Eminence,@ she replied, AThat was my house.@

Why? Why would a young woman give up all that luxury and all that beauty?  I think if we could have asked her, or hundreds like her round the world, she would have said something like this:

AI wanted to be with Jesus.@

Our gospel reading today tells of a similar sacrifice by two pairs of brothers: Simon and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John.  They were fishermen.  Yet at Jesus= call, our gospel told us, they immediately leave their nets and boat and follow him. Their nets and boat were their livelihood, their security. They were burning their bridges behind them. Why? If we could have asked them, I think they might have said something like this: AYou would have to have known this man Jesus. There was something about him that made it impossible to say No.@

Somewhere in this church right now there is a young woman whom God is calling to be a religious Sister. Somewhere there is a young man who God wants to be a priest. Let me speak very personally to you.

         Jesus is offering you something he offers to only a few, something precious beyond words. He is offering you a life that will sometimes be hard, but which will be filled with meaning and filled above all with joy. How do I know that? Because seventy-three years ago Jesus made that offer to me. He called me when I was just twelve years old by placing in my heart and mind the desire to be a priest. Since then I have never wanted anything else. Thirteen years later I fulfilled that desire.  On April 3^rd of this year that will be sixty years ago. Those sixty years have brought me joy beyond telling. But they have also brought me suffering, sorrow, and grief. Have I ever regretted my decision for priest hood? Never. Not one single day.

And so I say to you, whoever you may be, whatever your age, whatever your circumstances:  When Jesus calls you, go for it! And one day you too will be able to say what I say to you right now: What a wonderful life! I have experienced already here on earth a little bit of heaven.

Is God=s call just for religious professionals, priests and religious Sisters? Don=t you believe it! While you were still in your mother=s womb, God already had a plan for your life. He calls each one of us, as he called those four rough fishermen in today=s gospel. He calls us to walk with him, to be so full of his love that others will see the joy on our faces and want what we have. Christianity, it has been said, cannot be taught. It must be caught.

AI could never do that,@ you=re thinking?  You=re wrong.  Here is a list of some of the great people in the Bible. It was sent to me by e-mail, by whom I no longer know. Every one of these people had a reason for thinking God could not use them. So the next time you feel like God can=t use you, remember: 

Noah was a drunk. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer.  Jacob was a liar. Joseph was abused by his brothers. Moses had a stuttering problem. Gideon was afraid. Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute. Jeremiah and Timothy thought they were too young. David had an affair and was a murderer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah thought himself unworthy. Jonah ran away from God=s call. Naomi was a widow. Job went bankrupt. Martha was a perpetual worrier. The Samaritan woman whom Jesus met at the well was five times divorced. Zaccheus was too small. Peter denied Christ.  The disciples fell asleep while praying. At Jesus= arrest, they all forsook him and fled. Paul was a religious fanatic. Timothy had an ulcer. And Lazarus was dead! 

           So what=s your excuse?  Whatever it may be, God can still use you to your full potential. Besides, you aren=t the message. You=re only the messenger.

When you were born, you were crying, and everyone around you was smiling. Start today (if you haven=t started already) living your life so that when you die, you=re the only one smiling, and everyone around you is crying.