Today's Ornament of Grace for Wednesday of the first week of Advent is St. Andrew.
from Romans 10:9-18
For if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Faith in the heart leads to justification, confession on the lips to salvation.
St. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, had a Greek name meaning “courageous,” and he certainly lived up to that name. Born in Bethsaida, Andrew and his brother followed in their father’s footsteps and became fishermen. Both Andrew and his brother Simon (later called Peter) settled in Capernaum to establish their fishing business near the northern shore of Lake Tiberias, also known as the Sea of Galilee, the largest freshwater lake in Israel.
Andrew often traveled to listen to John the Baptist, and he became one of his disciples. One day he and another disciple were with the Baptist in Bethany when they heard John say about his cousin who was passing by, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” Hearing these words, Andrew and the other disciple then followed Jesus. Seeing them, Jesus asked them what they were looking for, and they replied, “Rabbi, where do you stay?” Jesus said, “Come and see.” So, Andrew and the other disciple followed Jesus to his lodging and remained with him the rest of the day.
The first thing Andrew did after that was go to his brother Simon Peter in Capernaum and tell him they had found the Messiah. He then brought his brother to meet Jesus. Later, they returned to their fishing enterprise, continuing as they had before. But after John the Baptist was thrown into prison, Jesus left Nazareth to minister in Capernaum. There, Jesus began to preach repentance as John had done. Jesus told everyone the Kingdom of God was at hand.
In Capernaum, Andrew and Simon Peter were fishing on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus saw them and said, “Come and follow me; I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately, they dropped their nets and followed Jesus. After this, we do not hear much about Andrew, except as part of the group of Jesus’ twelve apostles. He does emerge as the one who, when Jesus was feeding the five thousand, said, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fishes; but what is that among so many?” We know how that turned out!
Like the other apostles, Andrew did not fully understand Jesus’ infinite power yet. He is mentioned a few other times. The important thing, though, is that Andrew followed Jesus immediately when he was called, and he followed Jesus faithfully until the end of his life.
Like most of the apostles, he was martyred for his faithful love. Tradition tells us that Andrew preached the Gospel in the districts around the Black Sea. Legend holds that he was bound, rather than nailed to a cross, to prolong his suffering. The cross was in the shape of an X because Andrew said he did not deserve to die on a cross shaped like the cross of Jesus. The X-shaped cross now always bears St. Andrew’s name.
OBSERVING THE BEAUTIFUL ORNAMENTS
If Jesus calls you to do something in His name, can you give an example of how you can drop everything to do that?
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