November 30/First Monday of Advent
Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle
Immediately they left their nets and followed him. ~ Matt. 4.18
On this Feast of St. Andrew, we can all produce a stack of reasons not to follow Christ — immediately or otherwise. So many of us are just hanging on as it is: trying to keep a job if we have one (or find one if we don’t), managing a protean schedule of in-person and online classes for the kids, protecting vulnerable family members, worrying about finances — all of this with an uncertain Christmas season looming. Life is stressful enough already. In his time and place, scratching out a living as a fisherman in his Galilean village, Andrew was also beset by the exigencies of daily life. But when Christ called, he responded at once, from his heart: with his brother, Simon Peter, Andrew dropped what he was doing and “immediately followed him.” For us, far removed from that ancient lakeside shore, following Christ means putting him at the center of our hearts, as Andrew did, asking him to walk with us through the mundane routines and tasks of every day life. As the great 20th-century British mystic Evelyn Underhill counseled, “Never let yourselves think for one minute that because God has given you many things to do for him, . . . a great many pressing routine jobs, a life that is full up with duties and demands of a very practical sort—that all this need separate you from communion with Him. God is always coming to you in the sacrament of the present moment.” Christ is calling each of us, in our prosaic circumstances, to leave the familiar and walk into the unknown with him. May we respond with the trust and faith that Andrew showed.
O God, who has the power to make a sacrament of each moment, grant us the courage and love we need to follow you with our whole hearts. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/113020.cfm
To hear the choir of Wall Street Trinity Church sing “They Cast Their Nets in Galilee,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8FnzmtmcfQ
