“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
Fr. Joseph Pham Quoc Van, O.P.
My dear brothers and sisters,
This Sunday, the readings focus on how God’s call and our response
to that call changes our lives and those of others. The readings lead us to
meet three central figures: Jonah, Jesus, and Paul who have one thing in
common. There is a certain urgency in the way they proclaim repentance, a
change of heart that leads to witness.
The first reading from the Book of Jonah contains a most engaging
story on the Lord's determination to embrace all people in his plan of
salvation. The people of Nineveh responded by believing in God, proclaiming a
fast and repenting their sins. "And God relented". The lesson is
clear. There are no limits to God's love in his plan of salvation.
In the Gospel passage, Jesus begins his public ministry and goes
into Galilee proclaiming the Good News. Jesus proclaims that
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and
believe in the good news.” Jesus urges us to change our lives as a
condition of being part of that Kingdom. We need to repent
because the kingdom of God is approaching, and secondly, we have to believe in
the words of Jesus which contain the “good news”. One more time, we reply the
message of Christ: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God
is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
After proclaiming the message of
repentance, Jesus proclaims the Good News. For the ministry of proclaiming the
Good News, Jesus called Simon and his brother Andrew, James, the son of
Zebedee, and his brother John. They were called to make a radical decision
about the rest of their lives. They are fishermen and will become fishers of
men.
Through the
story of the Apostles, we recognize that there comes a time in the life of
every child of God when God invites us to follow Him more closely and to
participate in His mission. Let us today then ask the question
of ourselves whether we are ready to follow Jesus, follow him through all the
ups and downs of our lives, through the suffering and the joy, never losing
hope that God is with us and something better is always in store for us. This
is the Christian way, the Christian journey, the Christian hope.
The call of Jesus to twelve
individuals, the call we just heard about in today Gospel account, is not a
call issued simply to twelve Jewish men over 2,000 years ago. It is an
insistent call, and urgent call, a demanding call that comes down to us through
2,000 years in this Church of ours to us today, who have been called by God to
receive the Bread of Life from this altar and then to leave this Church building
on a mission. We are to leave here as those who are sent, sent with the Twelve
Apostles to change the world by first changing our own lives. “This is the time
of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand”.
St. Paul in
his letter to the Corinthians today believed that the kingdom of heaven that
Christ began on earth was going to be completed very soon and the Second Coming
was imminent. St. Paul tells us that the time is running out. From now
on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not
weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those
using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is
passing away.
So what message do we take home this
Sunday? 1) Like the prophet Jonah, we are sent to the Nineveh of today to
proclaim God’s mercy and repentance; 2) We have been called by Jesus like his
disciples to follow him and not to follow the world; to change the world rather
than being changed by the world.
Fr. Joseph Pham Quoc Van, O.P.
