The Call We Receive at Baptism

Untitled designI want you to imagine today’s Gospel, when Jesus calls Simon and Andrew to follow Him. There is something important to see here and in order to see it well, you need to forget everything you know about Jesus. Just focus on this moment.

 

So, you see Jesus call the two fisherman away from their nets. Now we understand that this was not an instantaneous decision as it appears, it was something that happened, but clearly they gave some thought, maybe even were approached by Jesus several times. Maybe they heard him speak by the shore. Maybe they talked to Him first asking what He is about. But ultimately, we get to this very point: when he calls the two men, they drop everything and follow him. They change their life occupation. It is most likely, they had been fishermen from the time they were in single digits in age. They dropped everything to follow Jesus.

 

This particular movement changed their lives forever. However, it also changed ours and that is why it is important to study it. What do you see in this movement? People who changed careers or something deeper. If you look carefully, you see in this one movement something that is literally radical. Radical means to change from the roots up. It is the seeds of a revolution.

 

If you really look closely at the actions of Jesus, He begins a powerful revolution. As with all revolutions the issue is power and who is in charge, but notice, this is not a political revolution. He never called for any form of attack against the Romans. Indeed, he advocated paying the Romans their due. Neither did St. Paul. He commanded for people to be obedient to civil authority. His revolution is one that does not change governments, but changes hearts one at a time.

 

It is a spiritual revolution and believe it or not, the spiritual revolution is the most powerful because it is the spiritual that is the source of action. It is the spiritual that changes hearts.

 

You may have noticed that I never said anything about which candidate you should vote for during the election and I never tell you who I vote for because there is no need. Do not mix the Gospel with politics, it waters it down and politicizes it.

 

I listened for several months to those who are happy and those who are upset by the results of the election. I even heard from a Brazilian priest friend of mine in Brazil who has complained about the results of the US election.

 

Put no trust in princes. Jesus’ revolution is one that has as its goal the destruction of those spiritual forces that destroy people physically, emotionally and spiritually and you are part of that revolution. Like the Apostles whom Jesus called in today’s gospel. You were called at your baptism and later at your Confirmation to be part of that revolution. Your tools are simple, living your faith.

 

I told you that there is billions spent working to get you to reject the Catholic Church, because many in the secular world realize the consequences of you leaving your faith. When you do, they gain power and the spiritual forces behind them gain power, even though the people are not aware of it. The major issue is for a human control of life through the flowering of the abortion and cloning industries. These groups see the Church as an obstancle to billions in research grant money and eventually profits for these and future industries to say nothing of the umbrella movement of eugenics that spawned them.

 

Many years ago when I was at the Cathedral and we were being harassed in a soviet era style protests backed by at least one of our local universities. It would appear that we were fighting back against the protesters. We actually were not. We were actually fighting against the spirituality behind them: by the way that is a tactic explained in the works of Walter Wink’s engaging the powers series.

 

What are the powers that we are fighting today? The Russians? No! The opposing political party, regardless of how we define it? No. We are fighting the same spiritual forces that Jesus fought in his time, the demonic forces that most people dismiss that manifest themselves in leading people to reject Christ, dismiss the devil and walk down a path of ignorance into destruction. They result is a severe opioid crisis, lack of understanding of the meaning of the human, lack of hope, abundance of anger, hatred and manipulation, the exaltation of the human over the divine, the rejection of divine wisdom, the harvesting and selling of aborted fetal tissue and more.

 

We are living division in our country because people took up a revolution against God and fought back demanding their will be done. The result is a divided country with no common base: Demanding things like a hundred days of resistance, attacking people for embracing the democratic process, for meeting with our current president, passing laws that demand a whole new definition of the human being and unwittingly walking down a path that Christians have been warning for at least a decade is mapped out in Romans 1: Rejecting God, moral breakdown, followed by civil breakdown. You are called since your baptism to be the counterforce: our weapon is nothing more than being people of prayer and living the Gospel of Christ, which by the way is non-violent. Those tools are the most powerful tools of the most powerful revolution. That one that changed the world beginning with a man telling two fisherman to follow him.

 

The election is over, the current president is in power, but the future of our country lies not in his office, or congress or in the supreme court, it lies in the hearts of the baptized who choose to live the call Jesus gave to each and everyone of us personally and as a Catholic community. To hear his word and to proclaim his faith through the lives we lead to the praise and glory of God the Father.

God bless you,

Fr. Robert J Carr

Fr. Carr is member of the Segundo Elo  of the Canção Nova Community. He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MA and is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google plus as+FrRobertCarr, his website is Carrbooks.us Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook