1st Week in OT 2019 - Monday - The time is NOW

Once again we enter into Ordinary Time, the ordered time of the Church year in which we are called to order our lives to follow Christ more perfectly. Both of our readings speak of “time” this morning.
Hebrews spoke of “time past” in which God spoke through prophets, but then the time in which Jesus is made known to the world.

In the Gospel, Jesus speaks about “time”—“the time of fulfillment”. After 30 years of a hidden life in the home of Mary and Joseph, it was “time” for Jesus to begin his public ministry, to begin preaching the Gospel, calling humanity to conversion—to new beliefs, to a new way of living, of ordering their lives in conformity to His Truth. Similarly, this new liturgical season is a “time” for us to order our lives anew, to examine our ordinary day-to-day live and consider what better needs to be ordered to the truth of Jesus.

For Peter, James, Andrew, and John, it was “time” to leave their father’s fishing business. It was time for them to leave behind the ordinary and to seek the extraordinary. It was time for ordinary men of modest education to undergo an extraordinary journey.

It was not unusual for jewish men to follow a rabbi, a teacher, from time to time. But Jesus was calling them to something new. And there must have been something about the personality, or conviction, with which Jesus called out to them. Peter and Andrew immediately dropped their nets, they stopped in the middle of what they were doing; James and John leave their father in the boat. There is an immediateness to the call of Jesus, an urgency: time must be ordered to Him…NOW. Conversion and belief need to happen, not later, not when it’s more convenient, not when I can get all of my earthly affairs into order, but now.

Christians, we have much work to do, now, in seeking the conversion Jesus wants for us, and going out to be fishers of men. May this new liturgical season bring new conviction for the spread of the Gospel in our midst, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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To God the Father Almighty we direct the prayers of our hearts for the needs and salvation of humanity and the good of His faithful ones.

For the holy Church of God, that the Lord may graciously watch over her and care for her.

For the peoples of the world, that the Lord may graciously preserve harmony among them.

For all who are oppressed by any kind of need, that the Lord may graciously grant them relief.

For ourselves and our parish, that the Lord may graciously receive us as a sacrifice acceptable to himself.

For our beloved dead, for the poor souls in purgatory, and for X, for whom this Mass is offered.

O God, our refuge and our strength, hear the prayers of your Church, for you yourself are the source of all goodness, and grant, we pray, that what we ask in faith we may truly obtain. Through Christ our Lord.