The Great Introducer
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - November 30, 2007
The season of Advent that begins this weekend focuses on the great encounter each of us is called to have with the Lord. The Lord is coming — that's what Advent literally means — and we are called to go out to meet him. We are also called to help others to meet him. More than any other Biblical figure, St. Andrew the Apostle, whom the universal Church celebrates today, demonstrates for us how this is done.
We first encounter Andrew at the Jordan River astride St. John the Baptist, the great Advent prophet. Through his riverside preaching, John was helping his fellow Jews make straight the paths to receive the Lord.
The path to Andrew's heart and head were straight enough that when John, one day, looked up and said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" Andrew immediately left John and went to see where Jesus lived. He spent the day with Jesus, recognized him to be the Messiah, and believed in him.
His next move not only reveals his character, but shows what should be the reaction of anyone who meets Jesus. He ran to his brother, told him that he had found the Messiah, and hurried back to introduce him to Jesus. As soon as Jesus met his brother, he said, "You are Simon, Son of Jonah. You are to be called Peter" (Jn 1:42). Little did Andrew know, of course, what Jesus' plans would be for his brother. His sibling, a simple fisherman like him, was to be made the rock on whom the Lord would build his Church (Mt 16:18).
Likewise we never know what the Lord might do with those we introduce or bring closer to him. God may need us to be the instrument, or the fishing hook, to bring future popes, nuns, priests, or canonized saints to him. He may take them from among the members of our family, or friends, or co-workers or fellow students. Our task is to make the introduction, by letting others know we have found the Messiah, and inviting them to come to meet him.
Andrew's matchmaking would continue. He was the one who introduced the young boy with five barley loaves and two fish to Jesus. There was no way for Andrew to know what Jesus would do with those meager offerings, but from them Jesus would work one of his greatest miracles. He just brought the boy to Jesus and let Jesus do the rest. There's another great lesson here: whenever we put at the Lord's disposal our talents, or encourage someone we know to do the same, the Lord is capable of working great wonders. We may not have much, but in Jesus' hands, everything can be miraculously multiplied.
Andrew is at it again right before Jesus' passion. Some Greeks came to Philip and Andrew and said, "We wish to see Jesus," and the two of them brought them to Jesus. The Lord's response was not just to greet them, but to exclaim, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" (Jn 20:23). Their introduction was the trigger for which Jesus was mysteriously waiting, to inaugurate the culmination of his earthly life. Likewise with us, our bringing someone to the Lord, even some strangers, might constitute the beginning of an enormous new development in the history of the kingdom of God.
This Advent is a time for us to redouble our efforts to bring not just ourselves but others into a closer relationship with the Lord who is coming. The new beginning that Advent signifies starts with these encounters.
One final point. Andrew brought people to the Lord not just by his actions, but by his words as well. We don't have any extant letters from him or homilies, but we do have an ancient account of his martyrdom, in which we can see the way he died and extrapolate from there to how he would have lived.
His passio states that he was crucified on a decussate or x-shaped cross in northern Greece. The way people normally perish in crucifixion is not because of the literally excruciating pain, but by asphyxiation. When one is crucified on a t-shaped cross like Jesus, in order to breathe the victim must push up on his legs to open up his lungs to inhale. When one is crucified on an x-shaped cross, however, one's quadriceps are immobilized and the process of breathing is even more arduous. Since we speak during exhalation, saying anything while dying on a Cross is an act of tremendous heroism. St. Andrew's passio tells us, nevertheless, for the last 38 hours of his life, when he could barely get enough oxygen to stay alive, Andrew preached the Good News of Jesus Christ from the cross to the throngs that had assembled to see him die. Until his last breath, he was seeking to introduce them to the Lord.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
