3rd Sunday – Jan 25th, 2009—
We are called to follow Jesus and how free am I to follow Jesus ?
In the book, Winning by letting Go, Elizabeth Brenner tells how people in rural India catch monkeys. First they cut a hole in a box. Then they place a tasty nut in the box. The hole is just big enough for the monkey to put its hand through. But once the monkey clutches the nut, its fist is too big to withdraw. So the monkey has two choices; release the nut and go free or hold on to it and stay trapped. Monkeys often hold on to the nut.
The monkey’s situation is not unlike our situation when it comes to following Jesus. We want to follow Jesus more closely but at the same time we find ourselves wanting to hold on to something that keeps us from doing so.
Today as we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, it is a story of a person who was holding on to destructive mentality that is destroying Jesus, His word and the people who believed in him through persecution. Usually this feast would not be celebrated when it occurs on a Sunday, but we celebrate it because our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, declared a Jubilee Year of St. Paul from June 29, 2008 to June 29, 2009, celebrating the 2,000 years since his birth.
We all know the scene of St. Paul’s conversion form the book of Acts of the Apostles. There is the road to Damascus as Saul of Tarsus led a group of fervent Pharisees to go and cleanse that city of its followers of Christ. We have seen the paintings of the bright light with Christ in the middle, of the horse throwing Saul, and of his companions falling in fear. Actually, there is no horse in the scripture, Saul probably couldn’t afford one, but that is beside the point. The point is that Jesus appears to Saul and asks him, “Why are you persecuting me?” Not persecuting the Christians, but me. Jesus identifies with His Church, with us. Saul, as you know, is blinded. It is a fitting image. He had been blind to God’s presence among the Christians. It would take one of these Christians Ananais, to help Saul receive his sight and recognize God in the Messiah.
Today’s readings explain this aspect of holding on to one’s own habits. In the First Reading we see Jonah, the reluctant prophet, preaching repentance to the great city of Nineveh their attachment to bad habits and immorality. The people respond immediately, they proclaim a fast and they pray to receive repentance for their sins. Contrary to his expectations, the pagan peoples of the city “believed in God” and “renounced their evil behavior”. Consequently, God changed His mind about the calamity that He was about to send to Nineveh. Through Jonah‘s proclamation of the message the people were once more united in the righteous ways of the Lord God. They respond positively to the invitation and move closer to him.
The second part of today’s Gospel shows the early responses to the call of God. Four fishermen are called: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” At once, we are told, Peter and Andrew left their nets and boat and with that all their security, their possessions, attachments and followed Jesus. The other two disciples too did the same. At once, leaving their father Zebedee and his hired men, James and John also went after him. This is how Jesus calls and it is the vocation they received. They began their new life and journey with God
Although this feast celebrates that event, Paul’s conversion did not end on that road. It began on the road. He would go on to suffer for the faith. In Second Corinthians Paul states that five times he received forty lashes less one, three times he was beaten with rods, once he was stoned, three times he was shipwrecked along with all sorts of other persecutions. Far more difficult than these persecutions was “the thorn in the flesh” he speaks of in 2 Corinthians 12. What was this, exactly? Was the thorn his temper? He often lost his temper, even with Peter in Jerusalem. Was it some sort of temptation to sin? Was it physical ailments? We don’t know. But we do know that Paul realized his complete dependence on Jesus, whose “power was made perfect in my weakness, (2 Corinthians 12:19.) One thing is for sure; Paul’s conversion began on the road to Damascus, but was not completed until his final moments before his execution in Rome.
Paul in today’s Second Reading tells the Corinthians to live in total freedom and detachment. Nothing we have, whether things or personal attachments, are permanent and can disappear at a moment’s notice. Whether life is very good or very bad: nothing lasts except the fundamental values of truth and love, of freedom and justice. It is what we are, not what we have that counts. When Paul says that the present form of this world is passing away we find difficult to understand him in the present day context. He speaks of those who are married, because of the responsibilities that come with the married life; both spouses being placed in the affairs of the world which is passing away, those responsibilities become an obstacle to their precious spiritual growth and communion with the Lord. Their primary concentration should be the Lord and then look towards the earthly affairs. They too have received the calling from the Lord and are called upon to live as if they fully belong to the Lord
We may be cradle Catholics or we may have come into the faith through the RCIA. We may have always been united to God, or we may have strayed away and then come back. Our decision to embrace our baptism, perhaps to return to the Lord, is certainly a conversion, but it is only the beginning of the conversion. Through the Grace of God, our entire lives are consecutive moments of conversion, deepening conversions.
We need to challenge ourselves. What is holding me back from experiencing and encountering God? Do I follow Jesus and his ways in our life? Am I able to suffer for Christ like Paul by making sacrifices? The monkey did not enjoy the freedom because it did not release the nut but held on to it and stay trapped.
St. Paul tells us in what is perhaps the most assuring sentence for all of us who join him in the process of conversion: “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. In this Eucharist let us pray for this grace.
