Repent, Believe and Follow
By Bishop Paul S. Loverde
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 1/26/06)
The following homily was given by Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde on January 22, 2006 on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time at Saint Thomas More Cathedral in Arlington.
Jesus’ message to us today can be summarized in these three words: Respect — Believe — Follow. In St. Mark’s Gospel, from which today’s gospel account is taken, Jesus is depicted as beginning His public ministry with this message: "This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel." As He passed by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw two sets of brothers — Simon and Andrew, James and John — and He called them: "Come after me" — Follow me. And they followed Him.
However, what Jesus said to them — and now says to us this morning — is much more than a message. He offers us a personal invitation to be in relationship with Him. Accepting His invitation will demand, on our part, personal involvement.
Repent — this involves a turning back, an about-face. Another way to describe this is conversion. Many things attempt to turn us away from the Lord. We call these temptations and when and if we actually do turn away, we sin. But the Lord is full of compassion and mercy; He is ever-faithful, insistently calling us to turn back, not turn away, to come back, not stay away.
Believe — this involves entrusting oneself to another — and in our case to the Lord, Who is God and Whose Word, therefore, is true and can be totally trusted. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, "Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed … . It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what He says. It would be futile and false to place such trust in a creature" (No. 150).
Follow — this involves a personal decision to go with another, to imitate his life and to obey his commands. In today’s gospel account, we see the four disciples abandoning their nets and leaving their father in the boat and following Jesus, choosing to be with Him.
Repent — Believe — Follow: Jesus is giving us this message and invitation today. Why?
We who claim to belong to Christ by virtue of our Baptism need to hear this invitation everyday. The Lord calls us to live in deep union with Him, not just on Sunday, not just during certain seasons of the year, but every day, all life-long. In His love for us, He calls us to go deeper, to come closer, to be with Him. We are weak and limited, we are prone to sin; we in fact sin. So, each day, we need to hear Him speaking to our hearts: repent — turn back to Me; believe — entrust yourself to Me; follow — walk in My footsteps and imitate My life!
We who claim to belong to Christ by virtue of our Baptism need to hear this message in the challenging times in which we live. As members of Christ’s Body the Church, we are missioned to build a new civilization of love, to create a culture of life.
At the core of this culture of life is life at its very beginning of conception. Abortion denies and defies this absolute truth. This is why we must continue to point out the evil of abortion and to protect and defend life from its first moment at conception all the way to its last moment at natural death. Tomorrow, the annual March for Life will take place in Washington. I ask each one here and throughout our diocese to pray and to do penance for the victory of life over death. It is through prayer and penance, education and dialogue, persuasion and witness, that we will replace the current culture of death with a new culture of life. The people of Nineveh had strayed far from doing right. However, at Jonah’s invitation to repent, "they turned from their evil way" and were pardoned. It is not too late for our society to turn away from the evil of abortion and to begin building respect for life from conception onwards and defending life in all its stages. Moreover, I invite all those who are able to take part in the March tomorrow, so that our united witness can be visible and tangible to all!
Our catechumens and candidates who are being accepted today at this Mass into the parish’s RCIA need to hear Christ’s message and invitation. Is the Lord not calling them to repent, that is, to turn back to Him and to enter His church or to take part more fully in the Church? Is He not asking them to believe, that is, to entrust themselves totally to Him by "the obedience of faith?" Is He not pointing to them and saying, "Come after Me, Follow Me" all the days of your life in ever-deepening friendship? Even as we assure these catechumens and candidates of our prayer-filled support, we need to recommit ourselves, along with them, to repent, to believe, to follow.
Yes, the words Jesus speaks to us this morning are more than a message: They are His personal invitation to turn back to Him in true sorrow and repentance, to believe in Him and entrust our total selves to Him, to follow Him by walking in His footsteps. Let us listen and respond with willing hearts! Repent — Believe — Follow: as Jesus says in another place in the gospels, "Do this and you shall live"(cf. Lk 10:28).
Copyright ©2006 Arlington Catholic Herald. All rights reserved.
