Seminarians give it all up to follow Christ

Published: August 28, 2010

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor

By Bishop Anthony B. Taylor

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered the following homily on Aug. 7 during a Mass for seminarians and their families.

Six and a half years ago I visited the Shrine of the Virgin at San Juan de los Lagos, Jalisco, Mexico, and I was astonished by how many people were there on a normal Saturday in January. It wasn't Mass time and yet the church was packed with people praying and by looking at them it was clear that they really were praying! I'm sure 1) some were there to pray for a miracle, 2) others to fulfill a promise and thank God for favors already received, as evidenced by the thousands of retablos in the rooms off to the right side of the church, and 3) still others had come, like me, simply to pray, to spend time with our Lord and his Blessed Mother.

And these weren't just pious old women or priests on vacation. Most were young families: strong, hard-working young fathers with their equally hard-working wives and children. None of my three guidebooks to Mexico even mentions San Juan de los Lagos. The crowds pressing in on all sides were not tourists. They had come to listen to the Lord and to pray.

In Luke's Gospel we have the same thing: the crowds pressing in on Jesus to listen to the Word of God. There were so many that in order to get a little space, he got into a boat, put out a short distance from the shore and continued to teach the crowds from the boat. By the way, notice which boat he got into: the one belonging to Simon Peter on whom he will one day found his Church.

And then he does something highly symbolic that so astonished Peter, James and John that they left everything to follow Jesus. They were fishermen, probably -- as was usual in those days -- not so much by choice as by inheritance, tools of the trade passed automatically from father to son to grandson, each generation teaching the next. Fishing was their heritage and their job, but not their vocation. A vocation is always a response to God's call. In Luke's Gospel we have their vocation story.

Jesus has them lower their nets for a catch. They protest that they've been at it all night -- the good time to catch fish -- and have caught nothing. And now here they are, exhausted after fishing all night and short on sleep after listening to Jesus all day, and he wants them to lower their nets in daylight -- when fish are more difficult to catch -- and they catch so many fish that their nets began to tear and their boats were about to sink.

Crowds of fish pressing in on them, like the crowds pressing in on Jesus to hear the word of God and the crowds pressing in to pray to God at San Juan de los Lagos. Jesus tells them: from now on you will be catching men! That's their vocation. And so they leave their inheritance, their job, abandon their boats and the tools of their trade, their livelihood, even their families. They leave behind everything that was familiar and secure to follow Jesus, a man they've just met who makes them no promises and about whom they don't yet know much, but in whom they know they've heard a call from God.

And you seminarians and priests present here today, isn't that your story too? Jesus calls us and I can confirm from personal experience that if you respond -- giving yourself to him with all your heart -- he will fill your nets to overflowing as well.