hungry human hearts

Nov 30, 2024

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The gospels record that the first followers of Jesus (including Andrew whose feast we celebrate today) follow quickly. Jesus called and at once Andrew and his brother Simon follow.

In the next sentence of today’s gospel reading Jesus meets another pair of brothers (James & John) and he calls them. The term is used again… at once they followed Jesus.

Few of us would have the impulsivity or the courage to drop everything and follow a visiting preacher. But this pattern of immediate leaving-everything-and-following of Jesus repeats throughout the gospels. Think of Mary Magdalen, the unnamed woman at the well, Zacchaeus… and you are already thinking of many others.

And we know that the immediate testimony of those who were encountered by Jesus indicates that these meetings were life-changing. Andrew runs to tell his brother: we have found the Messiah.

I notice that in today’s Office of Readings St. John Chrysostom (late 4th century) suggests that “Andrew had given him, [Simon] and many others a careful account of the event [of meeting Jesus]; the evangelists, in the interest of brevity, regularly summarise a lengthy narrative.”

So let’s not over-stress the immediacy of response. Instead let’s acknowledge that there was a readiness, an openness, a hunger in these first-followers.

I imagine that they were already pretty dissatisfied with fishing, tax-collecting and sitting up trees. No doubt they began their first careers full of enthusiasm, ready to be the best at everything they tackled, accumulating successes and building names for themselves. But after a year or two or ten this life becomes an existence, a compulsive and exhausting grasping at one success, plan, programme after another and we’re left exhausted wondering about the point of it all.

This dissatisfaction with earthly existence is not a problem but a capacity for God. Thanks’s be to God!

And this is the point at which Jesus encounters us and says, ‘Yes! You are now at the point at which you have first-hand experience that while earthly work, projects, plans and even relationships can be great, they are not enough to satisfy the desires of the human heart.’

Pope Francis wrote about it in his encyclical on love and the heart last month. “Instead of running after superficial satisfactions and playing a role for the benefit of others, we would do better to think about the really important questions in life.” Par.8

That thought is not a bad start to our Advent journey… a time to wake up and seriously seek answers to the important questions in life.

Take time today to name your dissatisfactions in life – and present them to Jesus asking for an Advent miracle.

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Cafe Gatherings are beginning again. Just send me date, time and place, with your name, turn up and write FFF on a napkin in the centre of the table, and with whoever turns up chat about your experience of God in the last few days.

Wednesday 4 December 10.00am with Joan
Stumble Inn, 200 Mangorei Road
Merrilands, New Plymouth

 

 

 

 

1 Comment

  1. Thank you, John, for this reflection, and what a great gift during Advent to ask God to help with a small nagging problem. I am sure he will be receptive to my plight. Thank you and Gods plentiful blessings on you and your team.

    Reply

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