Jan. 26, 2014: 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A

To say that it was cold in Donaldsonville and the Baton Rouge area this past Friday is an understatement. There was a wedding scheduled on Friday at our church at 7PM and a priest from across the river was coming to celebrate the ceremony. Around noon, I innocently began to text the priest and the bride who was also coming from across the river. What would have ordinarily been an hour drive for the priest, turned into a 6½ hour ordeal because various parts of the interstate were closed. The priest had to drive down to the New Orleans area to cross the Mississippi River. The bride’s group and the groom’s group fared no better. Their drive was supposed to be just 25 minutes but both groups were stuck across the river and had to drive down to New Orleans to come across. They were late to their wedding, but they were married, nonetheless.

This Friday may have been a difficult and a testing day for most people, but for a select few it was a vastly different experience. One parishioner told me that her husband went out early in the morning in the freezing rain to spend time in the deer stand in the tree. I wonder what it was like sitting up there in the cold tree in the pitch darkness. I imagine as he looked out into the landscape barely perceptible to the naked eye, he heard the drizzle of rain hitting the fallen leaves below. He wasn’t in a hurry to go somewhere. He welcomed the opportunity to be patient. He was gazing and anticipating something. Many of you who frequent the Perpetual Adoration Chapel have told me that as you are sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, you are looking, gazing, waiting, and anticipating something. In the Gospel today, Jesus was also looking, gazing, and anticipating something.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee near the town of Capernaum. This area was where the Prophet Isaiah foretold the inhabitants who were in darkness that they would see a great light arise in their midst. Jesus was walking along the shore with a sense of profound intention. He then caught sight of Peter and Andrew in their boats, casting a net into the sea. It was not a momentary glimpse, but a prolonged gaze.

Have you ever had an experience of someone staring at you? Even though your back was turned, you sensed that someone was watching. Many a moments you turn around, and you find no one there. I wonder if Jesus was the one who was gazing at you. Just as Jesus found Peter and Andrew in their daily routine, he finds us in our ordinary, mundane and daily routine, ready to call us to a mission by an invitation, “Come follow me.”

What is Jesus calling us to? “Come be My light,” Jesus told Mother Teresa. That invitation is for all of us as well. Mother Teresa tells us a story of a man who was brought out of darkness into the light. One day in a big city, Mother Teresa visited a man who lived all alone in a dark, untidy, and neglected room. There was no light in the room. He never opened the blinds. The darkness reflected his life--he had no friends, nor anyone visited him. Mother immediately began to clean the room. At first he protested, saying, 'Leave it alone. It's all right as it is.' But she went ahead anyway. Under a pile of rubbish she found a beautiful oil lamp but it was covered with dust. She cleaned and polished it. then she asked him, 'How come you never light the lamp?' 'Why should I light it?' he replied, "no one ever comes to see me. I never see anybody.' Mother asked, 'Will you promise to light it if one of my sister comes to see you?' 'Yes,' he replied. 'If I hear a human voice I'll light the lamp.' Two of Mother Teresa's nuns began to visit him on a regular basis. Things gradually improved for him. Then one day he said to the nuns, 'Sister, I'll be able to manage on my own from now on. But do me a favour. Tell that first sister who came to see me that the light she lit in my life is still burning.'

If we look around, there still are many people who live in darkness and in the shadow of death. We need now more than ever disciples of Jesus who have the burning light and fire of Jesus’ love in them to illuminate the world. The light of Jesus did not come to judge us, but to save us, to show us how to live, to show us the way to the Father's Kingdom. Each of us can be sources of light to a darkened world. Indeed each of us is called to that task. But unless our own lamp is lighted, we won't be able to enlighten anyone else. There is great joy in being in the light. And there is an even greater joy in being a source of light to others.