Message of Abbot Paul - Sunday - 21st January 2024
Abbot Paul • January 20, 2024
Today is the Sunday within the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, so we know that Masses, Liturgies and Services will be held in churches and chapels all over the world for this intention, and Belmont is no exception. We are all praying for unity, just as we long for it and work seriously towards it, even if at times it seems an impossible task. One of the positive things we can do is to thank God for the unity we already share in Christ and for the many things we now do together which we once did apart. When I was a boy, we weren’t even allowed to say the Lord’s Prayer with Protestants, treating them as though they were pagans or worse. We have moved on leaps and bounds since then, due in great part to the Week of Prayer. We continue to pray that God will help us to undo those divisions in his Church which are the result of human pride and self-will. May the Lord grant us the courage to bring about that unity for which Christ prayed at the Last Supper, that in the Spirit his followers might be one as he and the Father are one.
Today’s Gospel reading takes us back to the beginning of Mark (Mk 1: 14-20), bearing in mind that on weekdays we are already coming to the end of Chapter 3.
Here we meet Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry. John the Baptist has been arrested and Jesus has returned to Galilee, where he was brought up. “There he proclaimed the Good News from God. ‘The time has come’ he said ‘and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.’” He seems to take over where John has left off and the message that he preaches is almost the same. At first sight, there are just subtle differences, but in fact they are fundamental. To begin with, the Good News is not a message but a person, Jesus himself: he is the Good News from God. Secondly, the time has come, the Messiah is here, there will be no more waiting. Thirdly, the kingdom of God is closer than his hearers realise, for where Jesus is, there is the kingdom of God: in Jesus the kingdom is present among us. Finally, that “repent and believe the Good News” is an invitation to believe in Jesus, to follow him as disciples and to accept him as Lord and Saviour. Whereas John pointed towards Jesus, the one who was to come, Jesus invites people to “come unto me” for healing, forgiveness and salvation.
Our passage continues, “As he was walking along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net in the lake – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men.’ And at once they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little further, he saw James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John; they too were in their boat, mending their nets. He called them at once and, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the men he employed, they went after him.” What strikes us first of all is the filmset quality of the scene. What a vivid picture Mark paints in so few words. Then we have the radicality of the invitation, “Follow me!” and the immediacy of the response. Those fishermen simply leave their nets, their boats and their father. Jesus comes first and he will make them “fishers of men.” The great thing about the Gospel is that it invites each one of us to be part of the story. In fact, the Gospel is unfinished and is still being written today, in our own lives.
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