The worst fishermen in recorded history must be the apostles. Scripture never records them as catching so much as one fish on their own. Rather, they are only able to catch fish when Christ is present in their midst. In our Gospel Christ encounters them and invites them in these words: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
This is an invitation to abandon everything and to follow after Him. At His call they left their livelihood behind and followed after this man who had called out to them. This man who they had known on no level and yet were willing to abandon all to follow.
Christ calls out to us with the same certainty of our readings were time is running out and thus we need to embrace repentance and the message of the Gospel. Jonah had to give a message of repentance: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” In Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians: “I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out...for the world in its present form is passing away.”
We have grown very comfortable when it comes to how we live our life and practice our faith. Outside of Lent we probably don't give as much as a thought to the concept of repentance and thus actions such as fasting and other practices of mortification of the flesh. Practices such as these are very important because they lead to detachment from self and the ability to abandon all for the sake of the love of Christ.
In the Gospel of Saint Luke Christ exclaims: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Thus we must practice detachment for the sake of following after the Gospel. We cannot allow ourself to grow lukewarm when it pertains to our practice of faith. To be lukewarm is to place our love of things on the same level if not higher then our love for God. Again we must realize that there is an urgency to Christ’s invitation to follow after Him.
Therefore in our everyday life may we find ways to follow after Christ. This detachment does not require the radical poverty of Saint Francis of Assisi, but it does require that we take the Gospel serious and thus conform our everyday life to it. This means that in the workplace one does not waste time, but uses it as a good steward. This means that student uses the time allotted to them for study. This means that parents should guide their children in example. This means that we should accept the crosses which are thrown our way and embrace them in order that they made assist us in coming to follow after Christ.
