Thursday, November 30, 2006

St. Andrew the Approachable

I have often wondered why, when Jesus chose a small group to accompany him for certain extraordinary moments, it was always Peter and then the two brothers, James and John--but not Peter's brother, Andrew.
I think I have a clue now.
Andrew was probably always networking. He just wasn't in the immediate area to be able to be called apart at the spur of the moment.
We get a glimpse of this character of Andrew in the Gospel of John, above all. There, Andrew is a disciple of John the Baptizer who takes the hint from John and follows Jesus. Once he recognizes Jesus as the Messiah, he goes off and calls his brother: "We have found the Messiah!" That was probably the hallmark of Andrew: not being able to keep good news to himself, he had to go find someone to share it with. That would have made Andrew extremely approachable. And again in John's Gospel we see it was Andrew who brought the boy with the loaves and fishes to Jesus' attention. And later still, it was to Andrew that the "Greeks" went when they wanted to get to know Jesus. In the words of "The Tipping Point" author, Gladwell, Andrew was a "connector."
That makes it all the more appropriate that a traditional prayer would be said from the Feast of St. Andrew up to Christmas (kind of the original Advent calendar). I would post the prayer here, but the poor old New York community computer is acting up and I'm afraid it's going to metaphysically explode on me any minute. So I leave it to you to Google! Blessings for St. Andrew's day! In his honor, bring someone to Jesus!