That's what happens in today's First Reading, for example. The people of Nineveh, a metropolis in the ancient Middle East, are living sinful lives: lives full of pleasures and noise, and maybe even full of popularity and great achievements, but empty of meaning and lasting happiness. That’s what always happens when people rebel against God’s plans and the moral law that he built into human nature.
God's heart is moved with pity for those sinful people. So he sends a prophet, Jonah, to wake them up, to put them back on the path of God's plan for human happiness - the only plan that will truly work. Through Jonah, God went in search of the Ninevites, because he cared so deeply about their happiness.
The same thing happens in today's Gospel passage. In this passage, St. Mark shows Jesus doing what he came to earth to do: calling people into a personal relationship with God. That’s really the core of what Christianity is all about. Notice how he calls his first Apostles by name - Peter, Andrew, James, John… He had met all these men before, as we read in John's Gospel, but now he calls them to follow him more closely. He calls them, because he wants to give them more meaning, purpose, and, ultimately, happiness. He wants to bring them into his Kingdom.
This is what the God of Christianity, the one true God, is all about: he comes in search of every human heart, calling us into everlasting friendship with him.
Jesus always has something to say to us. Jesus is the “Word of God,” and God is love, and love never tires of speaking with the beloved. In a sense, the entire history of the Church can be understood as an ongoing conversation between God and his children – people like you and me – who either listen and respond to God’s voice, or ignore it.
Alfred Bessette is a good example. He was one of ten children born to a working class family in Quebec, Canada, in the mid 1800s. He was orphaned at nine years old, and went to live with relatives. In spite of poor health, he had to work from a very young age in order to help pay for his upkeep.
At the age of 25 he joined the religious Congregation of the Holy Cross. For the next 40 years he spent his days in prayer and work, uncomplainingly washing floors and windows, cleaning lamps, carrying firewood, and serving as a porter and messenger.
Eventually, he found a more or less permanent assignment as doorkeeper of the college. As doorkeeper, he had contact with many visitors to the Congregation – poor people, sick people, people coming for council and for prayers. Little by little, people began to notice that when Brother Andre (as he was called in religious life) prayed for them, miracles would often happen. Soon he became known as the “Saint of Mount Royale” or the “Miracle Worker of Montreal.”
His most lasting contribution, however, was the magnificent Oratory of St. Joseph, the largest church in Canada, and the largest church building in the world dedicated to St. Joseph. It stands today on the highest point in the city of Montreal and receives more than 2 million pilgrims every year.
But it started out simple and small. St. Andre had always had a strong devotion to St. Joseph, the patron saint of Canada. As a young man he had a dream in which he saw a church building in an unfamiliar setting. The dream was so vivid and insistent that he become convinced he was being called by God to build a chapel to St. Joseph on the top of Mount Royale. So he did.
The amount of pilgrims who streamed to the little chapel to implore the intercession of St. Joseph (Canada’s patron saint), flooded the little building. So he arranged for its expansion. A few years later he had to expand it yet again. Today’s structure took almost forty years to build.
St. Andre was a humble but faith-filled follower of Jesus Christ, who responded to God’s call in his life, just like the first Apostles, and as a result, literally millions and millions of people have been given hope, meaning, and a deeper relationship with God.
God is always calling out to each one of us, because he loves us and wants to lead us to a more fulfilling life, both here on earth, and also for all eternity in heaven. But we are not always listening. Our lives are filled with so much noise, that God's call often gets lost - we don't hear it, and so we can't respond to it.
One way to help solve this problem and to create space in our lives to hear God’s voice is to go on a media fast. Mass media are not evil in themselves. In fact, the Church has consistently encouraged Catholics to make intelligent use of these wonderful tools, especially to help spread Christ’s Kingdom.
However, we all know that the spread of new media is happening so fast that we are constantly flooded by mind-boggling amounts of information, images, and entertainment. Statistics in this area are staggering. The average American adult spends more than ten hours a day consuming mass media! This is the environment in which we live – a very noisy culture!
If we want to be able to listen to God’s voice calling us to following him more closely, day by day, we have to control our own use of media, not be controlled by it. A great way to do this is to fast from media consumption on a regular basis: fast from radio during the first fifteen minutes of your commute; fast from keeping the TV on while your doing your household chores; fast from using the computer after 8pm for a week… Forcing ourselves to go “offline” on a regular basis can only improve the chances of our hearing God’s call in our hearts – and what is more important than that?
As we continue with this Mass, let’s tune in to God’s voice once again, let’s mean what we say as we pray, and let’s really listen to what God means to say through the beautiful words and gestures of this sacred celebration.
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