by Fr. Tommy Lane
The following account is written by Noel Kenny, one of those who featured in the Power to Change campaign last year in 2002.
“Around 1979 the heroin epidemic swept through our community, the inner city of Dublin, and all the young people ended up hooked on it. I had two brothers that became addicts and after seeing the devastation it brought into our home and into their lives, I made a vow that I would never be addicted to anything.
When I was 18, however, I started hanging out with a young man named Mick and we smoked some dope together. I was sort of an inward type and this gave me confidence—something I needed in my life. For the next four years it just became my everything. The things I had dreaded about my brothers’ life had come upon me. I started to dislike myself and everything I was doing.
In 1989, Mick came strolling through the flats once again. He’d been away for some time, but all of a sudden he was there with a Bible in his hand saying “Jesus Christ can change your life.” We thought, “Look what drugs have done to poor Mick. Now he thinks he’s God.”
With the gang it was easy to jeer and to slag him off, but when I was on my own, I knew he had something that I needed in my life.
There was a peace in Mick’s face that I didn’t see in anyone else’s in my community. So I invited him up to my flat to smoke some dope, for old time’s sake. He came up, but instead of doing drugs, he told me about the love of God.
“If I did believe there was a God he sure wouldn’t come down to the flats and have anything to do with all of us,” I said, secretly hoping that was not true.
I kept saying to Mick, “What do I have to give him? Do I have to give God my drugs? My money?”
But Mick said, “No, he loves you just the way you are. But he also loves you enough to change you from the way you are.”
Eventually, I committed
my life to Christ. I didn’t have any great revelation, but I just knew my sins
were forgiven. I just knew! When I go to bed at night, I have a peace in my
heart. I have peace in my mind. I can put my head down to sleep and know that I’m
going to wake up in the morning with no shame, no guilt and no sin hanging over
my life. This is the love, this is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I
gave up drugs for ever, I have since had the privilege of leading many drug
addicts and other hurting people to a personal relationship with Jesus. For me
this demonstrates the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to change lives.”
(Noel's testimony is used here with kind permission of Power to Change)
I was reminded of Noel Kenny by our Gospel today. Andrew brought Peter to Jesus and they became followers of Jesus. Noel’s friend Mick impressed him with the new peace he had found in his new relationship with God. Mick and Noel were both totally transformed by Jesus and became committed followers of Jesus. And then Noel led other hurting people to God as Peter would become a fisher of men and lead many people to God.
Who would have thought that Peter would eventually be represented by statues in Rome? In the Gospel he looked such unpromising material. He wanted to walk on the water towards Jesus but when he began he got afraid and begin to sink (Matt 14:28ff). When Jesus explained that he was going to suffer and die in Jerusalem Peter took him aside and told him not to allow it to happen (Matt 16:22). Jesus even said, “Get behind me Satan, you are an obstacle in my path because you are thinking not as God thinks but as men think.” (16:23) In John’s Gospel Peter didn’t want Jesus to wash his feet during the Last Supper (13:6) but when Jesus said that would mean they would have nothing in common he wanted Jesus to wash his feet, hands and head (13:9). Peter fell asleep in Gethsemane like James and John and when they came to arrest Jesus John also tells us that it was Peter who cut off the right ear of the high priest’s servant (18:10). Peter denied Jesus three times; in Mark’s Gospel (14:71) we are given the impression that Peter even curses Jesus during his denials even though earlier in 14:26 he said that even if all fell away from Jesus he would not. Yet in our Gospel passage today when Jesus calls him he says he is to be Cephas, meaning Rock. Jesus knew Peter’s heart and that the Holy Spirit could transform Peter into something beautiful for God just as a pottery maker can take a lump of clay and turn it into a beautiful pot.
Jesus transformed Mick and Noel into something beautiful for him, and through he Holy Spirit after Pentecost he transformed Peter into some thing beautiful for him. Let us ask the Lord to transform us so that can also become something beautiful for him.
This homily was delivered when I was engaged in parish ministry in Ireland before joining the faculty of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg, Maryland.
More homilies for the Second Sunday Year B
Do you recognize Jesus’ Call to you? & Our Bodies Are for the Lord
Related Homilies: vocation to be Christian: Bear with one another charitably, love your children
vocation to be Christian: We are drawn into the love at the heart of the Trinity
stories about vocation
more stories about addiction overcome through prayer