"Come After Me": Poems in Response
"Come after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men."--Mk 1:17 This command of the Lord was heard yesterday (though in the New American Bible translation, not the Douay-Rheims) during the Gospel reading at Mass. Though it was addressed to Simon (Peter) and Andrew, it is in some sense addressed to all of us: we are all called to follow the Lord. While some (that is, religious and consecrated virgins) answer this call by "[following] the Lamb whithersoever He goeth", the rest of us are called to follow Him "not whithersoever He shall have gone, but so far as ever [we] shall have been able" (Rev 14:4; St. Augustine, On Holy Virginity 28). In response to this call to be followers, we are to draw close to Christ, so close that to be apart from Him is painful to us. (Thus the absence of Christ's presence, or the feeling of it, is part of the dark night of the soul.) Many spiritual writers have expressed this fervent desire to be with C...