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January 21, 2024Today, we celebrate the Sunday of the word of God. With this celebration, the Church intends to remind everyone of the importance of listening to the word of God and putting it into practice. Pope Francis wanted this day to invite all believers to listen to the God who speaks and addresses us.
The word of God is a word that calls, and we are to welcome this Word and respond to his voice. Jesus himself is the Word of God made flesh.
In today's Gospel, we see the dynamics of the divine word: we have listened to the call of the first disciples. Jesus meets Peter and Andrew, James and John while they are carrying out their work as fishermen.
Jesus calls them to leave their jobs and to be totally available for a new mission: to become fishers of people, that is, to be totally at the service of the kingdom of heaven and call everyone to new life in Christ, to salvation.
It is a beautiful mission, that of helping Jesus bring salvation to all peoples and communicate God's mercy to everyone. Fishing for people means offering the possibility of emerging from the murky waters of sin that pollute people's hearts to open us to the freedom of being children of God.
It is impressive to observe how, according to the Gospels, the first disciples welcomed the word of Jesus promptly, and without delay, they left everything and placed themselves completely at the disposal of Jesus to fully share his mission for the redemption of the world. It's good to follow Jesus. It is exciting to work for the kingdom of God.
Dear brothers and sisters, even today, Jesus does not stop speaking his word of salvation to us and continues to call people, men and women, to place themselves at the complete service of the kingdom of God. How many consecrated people throughout these two thousand years of history of the Church have left everything to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth!
Many priests and nuns live their missions in our Apostolic Vicariate even today. They, too, were called by Jesus to leave everything to be with him and to testify that there is nothing more beautiful than meeting Jesus and following him with all of oneself and making him known to the whole world, bringing the Word of God to others. They, too, received their calling through a life-changing encounter or a profound insight through prayer. In this way, they recognized the word of God addressed to them: come and see, come and follow me. Jesus is the meaning of all life.
In the First Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul recommends living our relationship with all things with profound interior freedom. The world as we know it is temporary. Everything in life ends. If we cling to the appearance of things, we are disappointed because everything is transitory. When we are attached to things that pass, our life loses balance, and our relationships and affections become disordered.
You can't give your life for something that ends. Our heart is made for the infinite and eternal happiness. Only Jesus can fulfill the deepest desires in our hearts. If we attach our hearts to Christ, we learn to live wisely, even our relationship with all the things that pass, without becoming slaves to those things.
Finally, the call to radically follow Jesus, as happens in the ministerial priesthood and consecrated life, is also a call for all the people of God to live their daily lives in the light of the Gospel. Their particular vocation calls all the people of God to live life as a vocation and to the universal vocation to holiness. Life is a gift from God and is realized only if we give it to others for the love of Christ, our redeemer and savior. From this perspective, love between man and woman, marriage and family are also a true vocation to follow Jesus.
Dear parents, I invite you to communicate to your children the meaning of life as a gift and a call from God to perfect love.
Dear young people, I ask you to open your hearts to Christ's call to follow him, leaving everything to put yourselves at the service of the kingdom of God.
Finally, here's a small suggestion: to recognize your vocation and to welcome the will of God in your life, I invite you every day to read and meditate on a short passage from the Gospel and keep it in your heart.
May the Mother of God, who has welcomed the Word of God into her heart, support all vocations in the Church, those to the consecrated life, those to the priesthood, and those to marriage.
We also entrust our families and young people to Mary, the Mother of the Church. Our Lady of Arabia, pray for us.
