Coffee With God

Reflection: Matthew 4: 18-22

Today is the feast of St. Andrew, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. We often think of the 12 apostles as pillars. They were leaders and teachers in the community. They were heroic martyrs. Today, the successors of the apostles are the bishops in our church, and we believe they have been entrusted with the apostolic mission of teaching, sanctifying and governing the Church in Jesus’ name. The call of the first disciples that we read today portrays Andrew and the others as students of the Master. Jesus, the teacher, calls them to a new way of life. The call to discipleship is a call to learn from Jesus. It’s not an instantaneous promotion. When Andrew and Peter, James and John, and you and I are called by Jesus to be disciples, we become students of the one instructor, the Lord. The call reaches them in the middle of their daily activity: the Lord reveals himself to us not in an extraordinary or impressive way, but in the everyday circumstances of our life. There we must discover the Lord; and there he reveals himself, 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 those fishermen was immediate and willing: “Immediately they left their nets and followed him” (v. 20). The Lord is calling today too! The Lord passes through the paths of our daily life. He is calling us to go with him, to work with him for the Kingdom of God, in the “Galilee” of our times. Pope Francis invites us to reflect that, “If one of you feels that the Lord says to you “Follow me,” be brave, go with the Lord. The Lord never disappoints. Let’s let his gaze rest on us, hear his voice, and follow him! “That the joy of the Gospel may reach to the ends of the earth, illuminating even the fringes of our world” says the Pope in Evangelii Gaudium (no.288) Advent is an opportunity to begin this journey of discipleship again and become students of the Lord. We might be listening to the call of Jesus, and following him, like Andrew and other apostles, without knowing exactly what does it imply or where we’re going. Yet, the most important thing is to accompany Jesus and to let him accompany us.