From feast days back to the Ordinary Time of the liturgical year, the Church brings us to the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus, summarizing His preaching and detailing the call of the first disciples (Matthew 4:12-23).
The great light
Living in darkness is a favorite biblical metaphor for the people awaiting salvation. Jesus came to dispel the darkness covering humankind. Matthew, underlining the universality of Jesus’ mission of salvation, places the beginning of his ministry in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali in northern Galilee that had been occupied by Assyria. He quotes Isaiah (8:23-9:1) that this place, “Galilee of the Gentiles,” where people sit in darkness and dwell in a land overshadowed by death, has “seen a great light.” This echoes the infancy narrative’s visit by the overjoyed magi from the east who have seen the rising of the star of the newborn king of the Jews and have come to do him homage (Matthew 2:1-11).
And the evangelist explicitly connects the beginning of the ministry of Jesus with the end of the work of the imprisoned John the Baptizer. John called out to the Jews; Jesus from Galilee where He returned from the flight to Egypt (2:23-25) called out to all including the Gentiles to the path of light. After His resurrection, Jesus would summon His disciples back to Galilee (26:32) and from there command them to “go and make disciples of all nations” (28:19-20), as it is in Galilee where He calls His first disciples.
The first disciples
His disciples are to be his partners in the work of saving people. “Fishers of men” (4:19) is his own description of what they are to be. They are to “fish” people out of the dark sea, the abyss, the kingdom of evil. Jesus tells them to come after Him, to follow Him in His mission from the Father in heaven. As Jesus calls Himself “the light of the world” (John 8:12), His disciples are to reflect Him like the moon does in relation to the sun. This imagery, used by Saint John Paul II in his programmatic Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (54) as the mysterium lunae (the mystery of the moon), is the patristic interpretation of our Christian mission in the world—a wonderful and demanding task to be the reflection of the Great Light to a world sitting in darkness. From the first disciples on to our third millennium, Jesus asks His followers to be “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).
But for this universal mission of Jesus to succeed, conversion on our part is indispensable. The gospel call to metanoia (conversion), the continuity between John the Baptizer and Jesus (3:8.11), is the vital link between Jesus Himself and His disciples and all who would be saved. Real conversion, not some fake alternatives, means making a full turn for Jesus and turning one’s back to the previous life of darkness to live by the light that is Jesus in His Gospel. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5): victory is assured for those who will do what is to be done. Christians cannot possibly be liberating and “fishing” others from darkness if they remained themselves prisoners in the dark.
Alálaong bagá, this our Christian mission in the world to reflect like the moon the light of the sun is admittedly a daunting task considering our human sinfulness which often renders us opaque and full of shadows. The undeniable nominal Catholicism of so many Filipinos is rooted in the absence of true conversion to Jesus Christ, thus the contradiction between our actual lives and our so-called faith in Jesus. Conversion is not just sorrow for past sinfulness, but positive rebirth (pagbabagong-buhay, pagbabalik-loob) in the life of union with Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, shaped by the Word of God and characterized by mercy and charity to all. We do need a new evangelization based on conversion.
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