Monday 10th January First Week Ordinary Time

Mass readings for today are here

Gospel :Mark 1: 14-20

After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God:
“This is the time of fulfillment.
The Kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”

As he passed by the Sea of Galilee,
he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea;
they were fishermen.

Jesus said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Then they left their nets and followed him.

 

He walked along a little farther
and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.

 

They too were in a boat mending their nets.
Then he called them.

So they left their father Zebedee in the boat
along with the hired men and followed him.

I may never grasp exactly what happened in that encounter with Jesus that allowed the disciples' response to be so drastic that they left everything to follow Jesus. Unexpected as it was they began a journey that they must have struggled to understand.

It is only in recent years that I have slowly realised how much my faith has over the course of time transformed me. 

In my late thirties I gave up a good secure job and went to Africa to work and I didn't really know exactly what it was all about but I was convinced I had to go and my faith sustained my decision.

A few years ago I took up another unexpected call when I had to give up a career that had lasted 28 years and I was not prepared to walk the unexpected journey into the unknown path of early retirement either.

But I am convinced that God has been in all those tides that drew me to where I am today and one thing I have learnt and  Sue Monk Kidd puts it more eloquently than I could here: 

"We seem to think that God speaks by seconding the ideas we've already adopted, but God nearly always catches us by surprise. 

If it's God's Spirit blowing, someone ends up having feathers ruffled in an unforeseen way. God tends to confound, astonish, and flabbergast."

Now I'll leave it to Thomas Merton to say it ............. 


"My own personal task is not simply that of poet and writer (still less commentator, pseudo-prophet); it is basically to praise God out of an inner center of silence, gratitude, and ‘awareness.’ 
This can be realized in a life that apparently accomplishes nothing.

Without centering on accomplishment or nonaccomplishment, my task is simply the breathing of this gratitude from day to day, in simplicity, and for the rest turning my hand to whatever comes, work being part of praise, whether splitting logs or writing poems, or best of all simple notes. "

(From The Intimate Merton, by Thomas Merton)