3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
3rd Week of Ordinary Time……….. “Who Determines the Quality of Life?”
Receiving a Call. Leaving what we know. Following Jesus into to the unknown. Perhaps we find it hard to imagine that anyone could just walk away from a comfortable life into an uncertain future? For this reason, the call of the fishermen has always been thought to be referring to very specialized call for a unique type of person.
Throughout the years, this Gospel has been used for many a vocations pitch. What was being talked about here was equated with being called to be a priest, a religious brother or sister, perhaps a deacon. If one followed the Gospel call, you would have to give up working at a regular job. For many this also involved a pledge to forgo family life.
If you are a priest or religious, you would be asked to move from place to place never setting down roots anywhere. The general Christian population would not undertake such a call. And many might actually ask the question…..how could such a life lead to happiness? What is the quality of that type of life? Parents might discourage vocational choice. Maybe they would ask what the quality of life for their children would be.
You can bet the early Apostles faced that same type of scrutiny as they decided to become disciples of Jesus. We might think that the apostles were not leaving much. Life as a fisherman must have been drudgery. Fishermen would rise early if they would sleep much at all. The work had to be back breaking. You threw out the nets you hauled them in. You rowed the boat from here to there and back again. At the end of the work you had to clean up your equipment. Fisherman had to wash their nets as well as mend them over and over.
But if we look at the economy of Galilee, fishermen were better off than most people. You could make a pretty good living fishing. Fish were pickled and sent all over the region. We are told that James and John had hired men, so their business must have been lucrative. We can imagine the other fisherman looking on as the Apostles left and thinking to themselves, “Why do you want to get involved in religion? You have a safe secure life here. Why go there? What quality of life will you have?”
What we must remember is that only God can judge the quality of our life? And only we an answer the question of whether we think how we are living is worthwhile.
It is good for us to remember this as we commemorate Pro-life Sunday. How we judge the quality of life can be very controversial. Recently there was a news story with the headline that the number of Down’s Syndrome baby’s being born in Iceland is at an all-time low. Now that sounds exciting at first glance until one digs deeper. The reason that Iceland has the lowest number of Down’s Syndrome births is because tests are aggressively done on fetus’s in the womb to determine if there are abnormalities. If there are, parents are strongly encouraged to have an abortion. The rational used to justify the abortion is that the child will obviously have a lower “quality of life” if they are mentally and physically challenged. We must ask how this judgement is being made?
Many of us would disagree. Down’s syndrome individuals can lead a happy life. Also, because of medical advances they can live a long life. How can we gaze into a crystal ball to see what the someone’s life will be like? Where does that judgement stop? A child who seems normal in the womb in every way can have a very difficult life. Truly we must be careful when judging the quality of someone else’s life.
The Apostles chose to follow Jesus. In doing so they left a comfortable way of existence, to be rootless, moving from place to place. Certainly, they endured ridicule throughout their life because they followed the Rabbi from Jerusalem. Ultimately, most of them were martyred for the faith. One must wonder, if we could interview them in now how they would evaluate the quality of their life on earth? Would they be happy they dropped the nets? Or would they full of regret? We can only speculate. But at least they had the chance to make the choice to live in the way they feel called to. What we remember on this Respect Life Sunday is that everyone should be accorded the same privilege.