Stop for a moment and imagine you are in the middle of a typical day for yourself, whether that be at work or at home (or at home at work as many of us are experiencing.) Imagine the daily tasks you have, meetings to attend, children to teach, orders to fill, things that have to be done, that people are depending on you to do. Now imagine standing up in the middle of all of that and walking away. Dropping everything and just walking away. All that work just stops, those tasks don’t get done, that paycheck doesn’t come. This is the situation we pick up on in the Gospel when Simon, Andrew, James, and John just walk away from their livelihood. They drop everything and follow Jesus. Why? Because he forced them? Threatened them? Tricked them? No, because he simply called them. We also heard about Jonah’s triumphant walk into Nineveh today. How he proclaimed God’s message, the people repented, and Nineveh was saved. But let’s not forget 2 chapters earlier in Jonah where God first calls him to Nineveh. Chapters 1 & 2 of Jonah don’t walk us through his answering the call, deep prayer and reflection on the task God has called him to, then tidying up his affairs so he can answer God’s call. It doesn’t even walk us through how he immediately jumped up and ran to Nineveh to answer God’s call, much like the response we see in the Gospel reading today. No, it walks us through Jonah saying “I’m outta here” and running away, well, rather trying to run away. He attempts to flee from God’s call, to hide from God. Does anyone really think that will work? Well, it didn’t work for Jonah, and it still will not work for us, although, much like Jonah many of us try. But God doesn’t abandon his children, nor does he abandon his call for his children. He is, as Francis Thompson so eloquently put it, “The Hound of Heaven.” God is calling each one of us. Calling us to follow him, to listen to him, to love him. What is God calling you to do? It could be to drop everything and follow him, or to preach repentance, or maybe to volunteer at church or a local charity. Maybe he is calling you to a deeper relationship with himself to prepare you for what is coming. What God is calling each of us to is as unique as we are. I can’t tell you exactly what God is calling you to, but what I can tell you, without a doubt, is that God is calling you. And until we stop running away and listen to him, “Our hearts will be restless until they rest in him” – St Augustine of Hippo. We will be like Jonah, attempting to flee from an all-knowing God, only to find ourselves not where we want to be. Listen to God, ask him what he wants, pray about what he is calling you to do. I can personally testify that if you do, your heart will rest easy in God. Your life will change but in a way better than you could have ever imagined.

Pax Christi,
John Mihalko