KNOWN AND CALLED
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
January 23, 2021
When I was
asked by the Archbishop, now 27 years ago, to go off to graduate school to get
my credentials to teach in the seminary, he told me that I could choose to
study anywhere in the world, as long as the place offered the appropriate
degrees. (That would never happen today!)
I remember
thinking two things at the time. One is
that I didn’t want to go to Europe, even though that’s where a good many of the
best Catholic doctoral programs are. The
reason was that I didn’t want to be so far away from my parents for a period of
years. They were getting old: they were
in their 60’s for heaven’s sake-roughly the age that I am now! The other thing
was my awareness that I was a priest in the Midwestern U.S, who would be
training other students who were going to be –more or less-ministering in the
same area. I wanted to study at a place
that had an appreciation for what that meant-which I didn’t think could be
gotten at a school on another continent. (I continue to believe that).
At the time,
there were only four schools in North America that could offer the necessary
Catholic credentials, and the dean at the seminary told me not to apply at one
of them, so I visited the other three. The first visit was to the University of St. Michael in Toronto, Canada-
a Jesuit place. I didn’t know anything
about that institution, or about the Jesuits, or about that city, but I was
immediately enthralled with all of it.
Toronto is a
wonderfully cosmopolitan place, and there was something vaguely exotic about
the idea of studying in a foreign country- even if it’s just across the lake
from Buffalo, NY.
I wanted to
enroll there immediately. But I’ll never
forget the conversation that I had with the Jesuit with whom I met there. I asked him that, if he were in my shoes,
looking for the best training in my field of Theology in North America, where
would he send me? He immediately
responded, “to Cambridge, MA.” He added
that the University of St. Michael was/is a very good school, but that
Cambridge was better because one of his former colleagues was teaching
there. I was amazed by and grateful for
his candor. So Cambridge became my next
exploratory stop. By the time I arrived
there the Jesuit priest & colleague already knew all about me because the
guy in Toronto had spoken to him about me. I was welcomed by name.
Weston
Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge was yet another place of which I had
never heard, nor did I know any of the faculty. But the immediate message I got from them was that this is where I
should be. I was known to him and to
them, even though I had no idea about that until I arrived for an
interview. In fact, it’s where I stayed
for the next 5 years. It was the right
place, and the right thing, and the right people, and the right mentor.
I want to return
to what I just said: I was known, before I knew about it. That’s at the heart of today’s scriptures,
especially our 1st reading from the prophet Jonah and in our gospel
of Mark.
Jonah, as
you may recall, was the man who was known and chosen by God to preach a word of
repentance to the people of Nineveh-the pagans- so that they might be
saved. And Jonah wanted no part of
that. So he stowed away on a ship, was
tossed overboard when he was found out, was swallowed up by a giant fish in the
sea, and spit out on the shore a few days later. And God came back again with the same
invitation. Jonah was never happy with
his job, but he was known and chosen-so he had to do it. And he did.
The same is
true in the Gospel. Simon & Andrew,
James & John were by all accounts content in their occupations as
fisherman, and had no plans to do anything other than that. They didn’t know that they were known-and
chosen. And then came Jesus, and they
walked away from life as it had been for them.
Every one of
us is already known by God, & chosen for a part to play in the unfolding of
the Kingdom on earth. It may not be as
specific as a certain permanent job in a particular place & time &
community- and it may evolve as we move through the cycle of life. But we are known and called-all of
us. Which requires a certain vigilance
on our part to keep ourselves open& sensitive to the one who calls, through
prayer & through careful attention to the people & circumstances around
us. And maybe above all, it requires a
certain resistance to the idea that what I’m doing and believing right now is
the way that things always and ever should be for me, for us. I don’t entirely know how I am known by
God. To be known & called is usually
an invitation to grow and change, and that never stops in this life. In today’s gospel of Mark, Jesus’s first word
to his followers is “Repent”. That
doesn’t necessarily mean “feel regret”. But it certainly means, “consider something new, and come along”.
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