READING OF THE DAY
ROM 10:9-18
Brothers and sisters:
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
For one believes with the heart and so is justified,
and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
The Scripture says,
No one who believes in him will be put to shame.
There is no distinction between Jew and Greek;
the same Lord is Lord of all,
enriching all who call upon him.
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone to preach?
And how can people preach unless they are sent?
As it is written,
How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news!
But not everyone has heeded the good news;
for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what was heard from us?
Thus faith comes from what is heard,
and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.
But I ask, did they not hear?
Certainly they did; for
Their voice has gone forth to all the earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
MT 4:18-22
As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,
Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew,
casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.
He said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
At once they left their nets and followed him.
He walked along from there and saw two other brothers,
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets.
He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father
and followed him.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
How can we discover our own vocation in this world? It can be discovered in many ways, but this passage of the Gospel tells us that the first indicator is the joy of the encounter with Jesus. Marriage, consecrated life, priesthood: every true vocation begins with an encounter with Jesus who gives us joy and hope anew; and he leads us, even through trials and difficulties, to an ever fuller encounter; that encounter, the encounter with him, grows greater, and to the fullness of joy.
The Lord does not want men and women who walk behind him reluctantly, without having the wind of gladness in their hearts. You who are here in the Square, I ask you — each of you respond to yourself — do you have the wind of gladness in your heart? Each of you ask yourself: “Do I have within me, in my heart, the wind of gladness?”. Jesus wants people who understand that being with him bestows immense happiness, which can be renewed every day of our life. A disciple of God’s Kingdom who is not joyful does not evangelize this world; he is sad. We become Jesus’ preachers not by sharpening the weapons of rhetoric: you can talk, talk, talk, but if there is nothing else…. How do we become preachers of Jesus? By keeping the sparkle of true happiness in our eyes. We see many Christians, even among us, who transmit the joy of faith with their eyes: with their eyes!
For this reason, a Christian, like the Virgin Mary, keeps alive the flame of falling in love: in love with Jesus. Certainly there are trials in life; there are moments in which it is necessary to go forward despite the cold and the crosswinds, despite much bitterness. But Christians know the way that leads to that sacred fire which ignited them once and for ever.
But please, I implore you: let us not give credence to embittered and unhappy people; let us not listen to those who cynically recommend not cultivating hope in life; let us not trust those who extinguish all nascent enthusiasm, saying that no undertaking is worth the sacrifice of a whole life; let us not listen to those “old” at heart who stifle youthful euphoria. Let us go to the elderly who have eyes sparkling with hope! Instead, let us cultivate healthy utopias: God wants us to be able to dream like him and with him, as we journey, well aware of reality. Dream of a different world. And if one dream is snuffed out, [let us] go back to dreaming of it again, drawing with hope from the memory of the beginning, from those embers that, perhaps after not such a good life, are hidden under the ashes of the first encounter with Jesus.
Here then, is a fundamental dynamic of Christian life: remembering Jesus. Paul said to his disciple: “Remember Jesus Christ” (2 Tim 2:8); this is the advice of the great Saint Paul: “Remember Jesus Christ”. [Let us] remember Jesus, the loving fire by which one day we understood our life as a project of good, and with this flame, [let us] rekindle our hope.
(General audience, 30 August 2017)