Third Sunday of Ordinary Time/B
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Mk 1:14-20), Jesus, passing along the Sea of Galilee, calls Simon, Andrew, James and John.
At the call of Jesus “immediately” Simon and Andrew leave the nets and follow him and, again “immediately”, Jesus calls James and John.
The word ‘immediately’ can have a temporal meaning, and can be synonymous with ‘right away’, but it can also have an ‘existential’ meaning. In fact, there are decisions that we should be able to implement ‘immediately’, not so much temporally, but as an inner attitude. Waiting until we are mature enough to marry, to enter the seminary, to have children, to care for people, to face the challenges we encounter, is a great and at the same time subtle illusion. We will never be mature for all this, but we would become mature by doing it, by trusting, by risking, by trying, by loving…
When the Lord invites us to follow him, it is as if, by analogy, he were asking us to take a dip in a pool full of water. A pool that is not empty, because the Lord never asks us for ‘absurd’, ‘non-humane’ things. However, we do not know if the water in the pool is clean or dirty, we do not know the temperature of the water or even the depth of the pool. And if we keep pretending to want to know all this information, we will never dive in, we will never live, we will never become the people we can be.
‘Immediately’ we must follow the Lord, ‘immediately’ we must face the challenges, ‘immediately’ we must dive into the pool. It is normal to be afraid, but fear cannot and should not silently become the sole criterion by which we structure our whole life.
The introit of today’s celebration is taken from Chapter IV of Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 4:18) with the following text:
“Dominus secus mare Galilæ vidit duos fratres,
Petrum et Andréam, et vocavit eos:
Venite post me: faciam vos fieri piscatores hominum.”
(The Lord, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brothers,
Peter and Andrew, and he called out to them:
“Follow me, and I w ill make you fishers of men”).
The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The performance is by the ‘Schola Antiqua’ conducted by Román García-Miguel Gallego. The musical track can be found on the CD “Octoechos Latino – El Canto Gregoriano Y Sus Sistemas Melódicos” published by Pneuma in 2002.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
