"The readings from Jonah and the Gospel describe instantaneous and positive responses. Jonah is given the task of preaching conversion to hitherto unrepentant Nineveh. The demand for repentance barely leaves Jonah's lips and the city rises up to obey. The people repent in sackcloth and ashes.

In the Gospel for this day, Jesus is walking the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Not once, but twice, he encounters a set of brothers, who abandon their nets at Jesus' call. Such spontaneous and obedient responses appear rarely. And today we get two such incidents in a row. We must not miss the point. God expects such a response from us. This is our chance, our big chance. God knows this, and if we are not too dull of spirit, we know it, too. God's call is Good News that we can seize. This may imply surrendering the bad news of our easy and trivializing habits, not someday or tomorrow, but right now.

Making such a response to God's offer of Good News calls for faith yes, but more than that, it calls for freedom. God's call invites our free response. That is why Paul summons us in the second reading to travel light, to lead lives unburdened of those things that threaten to drag us down and keep us there. It would be drawing the wrong conclusion to infer that Paul is denigrating marriage or an other human good. Rather he is simply calling attention to the fact that responding to Christ's summons means achieving a perspective that focuses the stuff of human life toward God." Taken from Scripture Soundings' commentary on the Third Sunday, World Library Publications.