The usual tasks, the ordinary occupations, the habitual duties – yes, the everyday routine.
Not very attractive, not especially inviting, and… not really inspiring…
Yet, inspiration can be found there – this is the message I discover in today’s gospel text (Mk.1:14-20).
The four fishermen who were to become the first apostles were not in the Temple.
They were not joining in a ritual celebration, or even offering alms for the priests.
They were simply busy with the daily chore of mending their nets and getting food for their family by fishing, as they were used to.
The inspiration comes precisely in the fact that it is there, in the usual and the ordinary, that Jesus meets us.
It is in these day-to-day tasks that he calls us to share in ‘his task’, that of doing the will of the Father.
We sometimes think of the special occasions and the unusual situations as meeting-places with God.
We may see our daily work as just too ordinary for God.
What about 30 years spent as a carpenter by the Man of Nazareth?
Was that not very ordinary and commonplace?
But, I am personally convinced that, to God nothing is too common.
Nothing is too low for him to join us where we are, precisely at what we are doing.
And then… things can take on such a different meaning.
Note: Another reflection on a different theme is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/3e-dimanche-de-lannee-b-2021/