Homily for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time/B

Don’t wake up in roadside ditch!

In one of the funnier yet absurd commercials I’ve ever seen DIRECTV teaches us a lesson about making bad choices.  In the commercial a customer gets angry at his cable TV company and needs to blow off steam.  In doing so, he injures his eye, and has to wear an eye patch.  Riding home from the doctor, a gang of thugs mistakes his eye patch for being a tough guy.  The thugs decide to see how tough a guy he really is and, you guessed it; the angry cable TV customer wakes up in a roadside ditch.  The moral of the commercial is if he only had DIRECTTV he would not wake up in a roadside ditch.

This commercial, on a broader level, is about making bad choices and the consequences that can result.  Many of us may recall in our lives making bad choices, or the way we react or overreact to those challenges making matters worse.  When we give in to anger, despair and hopelessness, we too can find ourselves in a roadside ditch.

As people of faith, what can we do to avoid waking up in our own proverbial roadside ditch?

On this third Sunday in Ordinary Time, our readings give us a hint at following the right path to avoid our roadside ditches.  The 1^st reading gives us that Old Testament prophet Jonah, who almost everyone remembers because of the story of his famous encounter with a whale.  Today we find Jonah at the great, vast city of Nineveh where God asks him to announce to all who live there that they will be destroyed.  Why?  As a people, they made bad choices; sinful choices.  They all found themselves in a roadside ditch.  But Jonah faithfully responds to God’s request despite the vastness of Nineveh.  And collectively, the people of Nineveh respond to Jonah’s message from God.  The people repent; they climb out of those roadside ditches of sin and turn back to God.  And they were saved!  Imagine today if we could witness that level of change, a complete change of heart and mind to repent, turning away from sin and all its destructive consequences and return to God.  This first reading from Jonah, thousands of years old, is still relevant today especially as we mark Pro-Life weekend and March for Life Monday.

Turning our attention to Mark’s Gospel, the shortest of the four Gospels, we now hear Jesus calling people to repent.  Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand!  We are told this happens after John the Baptist was arrested.  Why is this fact important?  Like Jonah before him, John the Baptist too was a great prophet; in fact the last great prophet before Jesus begins his public ministry.  Now that John has been imprisoned, Jesus begins to go forth and announce the gospel; the good news of God.

To help him in his ministry and to take this gospel; this good news, to the whole world, Jesus begins to call together his band of followers; his Apostles.  We hear today of the first four he calls.  Notice that Jesus did not select from among the people the richest, the most highly educated or the culturally elite.  Jesus selected four common working men; fishermen by trade.  What was it about this Jesus to call these men at work and they follow Him, immediately?  Simon and Andrew abandon their work in the middle of casting their nets.  James and John not only abandon their work, they appear to simply leave their dad all alone, in the boat, and follow Jesus.  Immediately!  Radically!

The call to follow Jesus, to make Him truly first and foremost in our lives, to make good choices and avoid our roadside ditches, is not unlike that of Simon, Andrew, James and John or the message proclaimed by Jonah.  We are to follow him fully, completely immediately and radically.  We too are called to be fishers of men.

So how are we called this week to follow Jesus, to avoid our own bad choices and stay out of those roadside ditches?  Here at Most Holy Trinity we are blessed to have many ministries and many opportunities to put our faith into action and truly become fishers of men.  Every 1^st Friday here we have Eucharistic Adoration all day long with Benediction at 6 p.m.  Jesus is waiting, on the altar, exposed in a monstrance for all to see, worship and adore.  At Benediction, Jesus Himself, in the Blessed Sacrament imparts His blessing on all gathered.  To say that attendance for this most important event in the life of our parish family is wanting would be an understatement.  Like Jonah calling Nineveh to repent, like Jesus calling together His followers, we, the parishioners of Most Holy Trinity are called Adoration and Benediction.  It may take effort, it may require we leave our nets, it may even require we love family or friends behind, for a little while, to be present to Him, to follow Him and to help us avoid our roadside ditches. 

Adoration and Benediction, here at Most Holy Trinity, every 1^st Friday, starting immediately after morning Mass and ending with the Benediction from 6 to 6:30!!

Many new ministries are just getting off the ground now.  From our young adult group, to a vocations committee to an evangelization committee there are many opportunities to step up and serve right here at Most Holy Trinity.

And finally, in this important week ahead, can we all focus our prayer time to support the Pro-Life cause?  It’s now almost 40 years since Roe v. Wade and we remain a very pro-death society.  But we are people of faith and people of life.  One sure way to avoid those roadside ditches is to affirm life!

Like that cable TV customer in the commercial, we too get mad sometimes at things in our live and we make bad choices.  We may not get an eye patch, but we suffer consequences and we too can end up in a roadside ditch.  But if we repent and turn completely to God, and choose to radically follow Jesus, letting nothing hold us back, we can confidently predict:

We won’t wake up in a roadside ditch!