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3rd Sunday of OT (01-25-15) - Destiny Intertwined

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Homily - 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

If you are a fan of comic books or superheroes, 2012 was an especially exciting year for you. In 2012, the highly anticipated Avengers movie was released. It gave us an opportunity to see so many superheros that we had come to love, come together to fight the forces of evil. But their battle was not so clear cut as other superhero movies. In most superhero movies the audience usually gets a clear view of good versus evil. We usually know what the hero needs to do in order to defeat the evil. The excitement is often in seeing how the hero gets there. The Avengers movie gave us a bit of a twist. We had a tough time seeing just how all of these superheros were going to work together. These superheros were so used to working alone that it made it very difficult for them to see themselves as part of a team. After much struggle, they realized that their individual missions intertwined with each other. Their destiny to defeat evil was intertwined with the other superheroes. The only way they were going to be able to save the world and save themselves was to work together. They had to cast aside their giant egos for the betterment of the team.



On this Third Sunday of Ordinary time, we find ourselves listening to the beginning of Mark's

Gospel. Mark 1:13-14 provides us with the end of the prologue to the Gospel, and almost acts as a movie trailer for the rest of the Gospel. We find Jesus proclaiming the Gospel... the Good News to those He encounters. He begins His public ministry by proclaiming, "the Kingdom of God is at Hand." And what does this look like throughout the Gospel? Jesus proclaims the words of everlasting life, and He does things that no one is capable of doing.
But He doesn't do all of this alone. The rest of this weekend's Gospel shows us the calling of His disciples. He sees Simon Peter and Andrew fishing. He calls after them, "come after me and I will make you fishers of men!" And how do they respond? They immediately follow Him. They are willing to leave their source of income... their very livelihood to follow him.



Fr. Francis Maloney reveals something interesting about the original meaning of the Greek verb "to follow." He says that it had such a deeper meaning than simply following in a line. What Jesus was asking them was this: Allow my mission to be your mission... your destiny to be intertwined with my destiny. To this question, they follow Him immediately.

Today, Jesus invites us to follow Him just as He asked Simon Peter and Andrew 2000 years ago. We might not have superpowers or gadgets for this journey, but we do not need those things. We may not physically follow Jesus as His Disciples did 2000 years ago, but we do not need to do that. Jesus promised to be with us... to give us His very life. He gifts us with His grace every time we celebrate the sacraments. We simply have to close our eyes and listen to our heart beat for us to see that He is so much closer to us than even that.