andrew

Today we celebrate the feast of the Apostle Andrew.  Peculiar with this apostle is the fact that he is always depicted in the gospels as one who introduced people to Jesus.  The first incident happened when he introduced his brother Simon who was later called Peter to Jesus.  Another was during the feeding of the five thousand.  When Jesus asked them to get food to feed five thousand men Philip, another apostle gave up, but Andrew found a solution.  He found a boy who had five loaves a few fish to Jesus.  He brought the boy to Jesus, introduced him and the rest is history.  Another incident was the meeting with the Greeks.  The Greeks wanted to meet Jesus but they were afraid to come near him for fear that Jesus might reject them.  Again Andrew came to the rescue and introduced the Greeks to Jesus.  That is the apostle Andrew.

If there is one virtue we should imitate in Andrew I believe it should be - we are called to introduce people to Jesus - to learn to introduce Jesus to other people. 

This is the significance of Andrew to all of us.  Andrew introduces to us the missionary vocation – to introduce other people to Jesus, to bring people to Jesus.

This task of Andrew is the task of every formator.  It is the task of every priest and religious sister.  To present within the ambit of Christ’s love and power the boy and whatever little he has, whether it be five barley loaves and two fish or even less to feed thousands.