Making the experience of Jesus and setting out in movement

The first vocations. Jn. 1:35-42

Today's gospel is made up of actions for moving and looking, 2 actions that profoundly change people's lives.

Let us look a bit at the verbs that describe the actions: Jesus passed by, John fixed his gaze on him, gave the testimony and the disciples followed Jesus. A movement causes a look, the gaze provokes the witness, the testimony provokes other movement.

Jesus turned, looked at the disciples and asked:  “what were you looking for?”, then he said: “ come and see” and they followed him. Once again a movement provokes a look, the look provokes a question, the question, another movement and another look.

Andrew meets Simon (movement and look),  gives testimony and together they go to look for Jesus. Once again a movement causes a look, the gaze provokes the testimony, the testimony provokes another movement.

Jesus fixed his gaze on him and said: “You are Simon, you will be called Peter”. The movement of the disciples has caused the gaze of Jesus, his testimony, but this time the final movement is not the physical one (which however  is there because from that moment Peter begins to follow Jesus), but the movement of the whole life, the conversion.

These are two fundamental verbs for every Christian: being in motion and fixing the gaze.

There is no Christianity for sitting or passive people. To believe is not pure knowledge, it is necessarily a putting in motion the whole life to follow Christ, adhering to his style of life, to his program and this cannot leave us quiet because what Jesus asks of us is very demanding.

This year, during Sundays, we will hear often passages from the Gospel of Mark. This gospel is all set up as a diary of a journey, a physical journey, that of Jesus through Galilee to Jerusalem, but above all a journey of life from our old "I" with his way of thinking and acting comfortable and closed, to the new "I", the one renewed by grace, by the action of the Holy Spirit, by the desire to configure the whole of ourselves on the model of Christ.

Well! This movement will be successful, will not be a failure, only if accompanied by the second verb, to fix the gaze. Attention! it is not a simple sight, it is the fixing of the gaze, that is to see deeply, beyond the exteriority, going to the deepest truth, to the very nature of things. Fixing the gaze also means that all other things lose their value because the gaze no longer moves from there but can see everything through Him, in God, with His eyes.

This is an experience that has profoundly changed the lives of the three disciples mentioned above, it has transformed them from simple fishermen to "fishers of men". Remember that this meeting has not changed the physical aspect, the health, the intelligence, the ability to understand things, the character of the apostles; in fact we know well that during the whole period in which they remained with Jesus they continued to be doubtful, fearful, emotional, etc. The change has been in the priority given of things, the purpose of life, the motivation that drives it.

Surely we Christians have better health than the disciples, better knowledge, better tools, but perhaps we lack the experience of fixing our gaze on Jesus, experiencing his life and allowing this to change our priorities. I believe that our eyes are still too fixed on ourselves, too concerned to protect our quiet life, our comfort, our security, our social position, but these concerns have nothing to do with the life of Christ, indeed , often they become an obstacle in living our full Christian life, then we become half-people, full of compromises, full of half-hearted excuses, but never happy.