THE WORD AND THE SAINT
November 30, 2023: Remembering St. Andrew the Apostle
Romans 10: 9-18; Matthew 4: 18-22
"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" St.Paul quotes this word from the scripture (from Is 52:7), to insist upon the blessedness of being an apostle of the Lord, being sent to bear forth the Word to others.
St. Andrew, the apostle whom we celebrate today, has played a special role during the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It is interesting to note in the Gospels, that Andrew as a disciple of Christ always had the role of bringing good news to persons... he brought the good news of having found Christ to Peter (Jn 1:41); along with Philip, he brought the Greeks to meet Jesus (Jn 12:22); and he brought that boy who gave the five loaves to feed the five thousand (Jn 6:9). Bringing people to Christ; and today bringing people to the Lord, is a special task of an apostle.
The corollary of the task is bringing the Lord to the people, bringing the goodnews to the people, bringing the Word to the people. And every apostle did that without any reserve. They, amidst all the opposition and threat, bore witness to their Master: they were the beautiful feet which brought the good news to the world, to the people, to persons and communities of persons.
Be it bringing the people to the Lord or bringing the Word to the people, the aim is enabling an encounter! Today the possibilities are plentiful and voluminous - enough just to imagine all the possibilities the social network offers us! In fact, Andrew is proposed as the patron of social network... because he used every opportunity to make Christ known to people and to bring people to Christ. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had described social network as the modern day pulpit and invited us to proclaim Christ not merely from the housetops but also from the laptops... and in Andrew, we have a great role model for it.
May we dedicate today every effort of ours to proclaim the Reign of God, through the social network, a great gift of our times. May we dedicate the social network which offers us such a great promise, that it may forever be an instrument in the hands of God, to bring God's will to fulfillment - to spread good news, to spread happiness, beauty and truth.
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