14 January 2019
Monday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an American drama film about a group of teenagers who are struggling with depression, anxiety, acceptance, and friendship throughout their time in high school. While there are many aspects of the movie that do not reflect Christian values, there is an important lesson that can help us to reflect our lives as Christians. The main character, Charlie, is a quiet, shy, intelligent, observant, and unpopular high school freshman who identifies himself as a wallflower because he has no friends and nobody pays attention to him. At dances, he is literally a wallflower because he stands off to the side and nobody invites him to join their dancing. Deep in his heart, Charlie is a loving guy who takes good care of his friends. Indeed, in the real life, we tend to pay attention to popular persons while ignoring many “wallflowers” around us.
In the Gospel reading today, Jesus calls a group of fishermen to be his disciples. Fishermen are like wallflowers because they are commoners who nobody pays attention to. Yet, Jesus calls them to follow Him to build the Kingdom of God. Mark uses the term “follow” to describe the importance of discipleship in the calling of disciples. In the Hellenistic world, the term to follow (akoluthein) means following in an intellectual, moral, and religious sense, and it involves personal relationship to the one followed, that is, imitating the pattern of his life. In the Rabbinic tradition, great teachers have disciples, but their disciples are usually the one who seek out their own teacher rather than being chosen by the teacher. The call of fishermen by Jesus is more like Socrates who chose Plato to be his disciple.
In our prayer today, reflect on various experiences that could give us opportunities to be like Jesus and to invite others, especially those wallflowers, to be followers of Christ. Such opportunities could be through the preparation for baptism in RCIA or through other experiences in the life of the Church. Or perhaps, we need to reach out to “wallflowers” in our workplace, schools, or Church and help them to get more involved and share with them the profound experiences of God we have had. In prayer, reflect about discipleship. What are the ways in which we can live out our faith and invite others to be disciples?