Today’s Gospel text focuses on two events: the beginning of Jesus’ preaching in Galilee and the choice of the first apostles. Mark tells the story of each event in a very brief way.

Jesus, who had been a disciple of John the Baptist and had even joined him in baptising people in the Jordan, decided to leave the area after John’s arrest by Herod, to settle down in Capernaum, and to begin His preaching about the Kingdom of God in Galilee. He had to be careful not to be arrested Himself. Rather than continuing to attract thousands to the desert to hear Him preach as John the Baptist had done, He would go to the villages to announce that the Kingdom of God was already present among them. Obviously Jesus was fully committed to preaching the good news about God’s Kingdom, but He was also prudent in the way He went about it. Perhaps there is a lesson for all Christians in this. A passion for and a commitment to bringing the good news of the Gospel to others will sometimes demand great prudence in the way we go about it.

An example of someone who did this is the Jesuit Matteo Ricci who went to China in the middle of the 1500s. He learned the Chinese language so well and appreciated the culture so much that he ended up writing a book on the “Lord of Heaven” which is considered a classic in Chinese literature even today. However, when it came to preaching about Jesus, the last thing he taught his catechumens was about the crucifixion of Jesus. Hr realised that if he started with that teaching the Chinese would not be open to hearing anything about the Good News that Jesus brought to the world.

Mark is also very brief in describing Jesus’ calling of the first disciples. If we read only Mark it would seem that Jesus just walked up to people and said “Follow me” and they responded by doing it. Wouldn’t it be simple if all of us received our vocation – whatever it may be: priesthood, religious life, marriage, parent, nurse, doctor, social worker, etc. – in the same way?

But if we read John’s gospel, we realise that the four mentioned were probably all cousins and were certainly followers of John the Baptist. They would have known one another. They would have been present when Jesus was baptised and when Jesus began also to preach and to baptize in the Jordan. They would have spent time with him and learned something about the message He had. They would not have completely understood (Mark makes that clear all through his Gospel, repeating again and again that the disciples often did not know what he meant by his teaching and his actions). But yet they were willing to leave behind their former life and follow him for three years. They themselves would be sent out to preach the good news in the villages and even work miracles. They were astounded by the “success” they had. They had said “yes” to being his disciples – a “yes” they would have to repeat often at different times in the course of those three years. Only after Jesus’ resurrection would they understand more fully what their “yes” had meant.

This too holds a message for all of us. I was doing formation work in the seminary for over thirty years and I don’t remember any seminarian saying to me: Jesus came up to me and said follow me and so I said “yes”. The seminarians’ “yes” to following Jesus was often done for a variety of motives, not always highly religious ones. A number of times a seminarian would say to me, after he realised all that was involved in his choice: maybe I should leave. I would explain to them: Jesus does not always call us through our strength, but He often calls us through our weakness. But He does call us. Realising this we must then be willing to say “yes” again to following Him.

I think most Christians in their lifetime have this same experience. They feel called by God to set their life in a special direction, or to undertakes some specific activity, or to get involved with others in a specific way. It does not always come in moments of some deeply religious experience. It could come through feelings of guilt, or of self-doubt, or of desiring just to be a better person. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is to say “yes” and to follow Him. In time we will look back and see that it was indeed Jesus who had been calling us all along to be his disciples and all we had to do was say “yes”.