Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

What Are You Doing With the Rest of Your Life?

Imagine Jesus walking up to you, wherever you are, and inviting you to follow. Could you do it? Could you abandon the familiar, leave it all behind, and follow into an unknown adventure? What would it take to say YES? What would hold you back?

The stories we encounter in this “ordinary time” of the Church year are “call” stories. They ask for dramatic change. It’s not just “come and see.” It’s not even “try it if you like it” kind of change. These followers of Jesus abandoned their livelihood, left family (including wives) behind and embraced the uncertainty that Jesus offered. They did this on the promise that Jesus would make them “fishers of men.”

I am praying today for all in our parish who are choosing to say YES to Jesus—to follow wholeheartedly, to not hold anything back from the invitation to grow in love, knowledge, and service of God. Pray with me for all of our catechumens and candidates, for all of our couples forming themselves for God-centered marriages and families, for women and men who are discerning their vocation in life. Let’s pray for each of us as we pay attention to the invitations God gives each of us personally, as families and as a Church community. What is God asking us at St. Francis to say YES to? And what do we need to leave behind? What needs to change in our attitudes, in our ways of thinking and in our actions that would make us intentional disciples—followers of Jesus?

Bless us and grace us in our new beginnings!