At the beginning of his public life, Jesus begins to preach not from an ideal place, but from the border: Galilee and Capernaum. In this commentary on the Sunday gospel, Friar Luciano Audisio invites us to understand metanoia as a change of perspective capable of recognizing the nearness of the Kingdom in the everyday, and to discover that the mission is always born as a response to a concrete need: where a voice is lacking, Christ speaks and calls us to walk with Him.
“Repent”: Recognizing the Kingdom That Is Already Among Us
We are at the beginning of Jesus’ preaching, at that decisive moment when his word begins to resonate publicly. But the Gospel makes us understand that none of this is improvised. Before speaking, Jesus has listened; before announcing, he has crossed the Jordan and the desert. The baptism received from John and the forty days in the desert have been a true school of discernment: there he has confronted the mission, he has learned to distinguish, to choose, to wait for the right time. And that time arrives when John the Baptist is arrested. When the voice of the prophet is silenced, Jesus understands that his hour has come. He does not enter the scene out of ambition or protagonism, but because there is a void that cannot remain unanswered. Where a voice is lacking, He speaks; where there is an absence, He offers Himself.
This fact is also profoundly illuminating for our life. Vocation is not born from a generic desire for personal fulfillment or from an isolated inner inclination, but from a concrete need that is imposed before our eyes. God calls where something is missing, where there is suffering, injustice, desert, silence. Jesus begins his mission when another can no longer fulfill his. Thus, a fundamental logic of the Gospel is revealed: the call always arises as a response to a lack, to a wound in history that cries out to be healed.
Galilee: The Periphery Where the Word Becomes Flesh
The Gospel tells us that Jesus goes to Galilee and settles in Capernaum, “by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.” It is not a simple geographical transfer. Galilee is a borderland, a mixed region, inhabited by Jews and pagans, known as Galilee of the Gentiles. It is a marginal space, an existential periphery, where religious identity cannot be lived in a protected or comfortable way. Living there meant exposing oneself to difference, to impurity, to the complexity of real life. And it is precisely there where Jesus decides to dwell. He does not choose an idealized place, but a city of fishermen, ambiguous, crossed by tensions and contradictions. Capernaum is not a city of saints, but a real city. And it is in the midst of that concrete reality where the Word of God becomes flesh.
This reveals something essential to us: God does not wait for our life to be perfect to be present. He speaks to us in the everyday, in the gray areas, in the spaces where we live with our frailties and contradictions. It is there where his voice can resonate, if we learn to listen.
Metanoia: A Change of Perspective to Recognize the Kingdom
The first word that Jesus pronounces is clear and demanding: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Conversion, metanoia (μετάνοια), is not primarily a moral effort or a simple change of behavior. It is a profound change of perspective, a transformation of the way of understanding reality. Metanoia means going beyond one’s own way of thinking, learning to see in another way. In this sense, it is very close to the Latin root of intelligence, intus legere: to read within, to go beyond appearances.
To convert is to learn to read reality in depth, recognizing that behind the great curtain of existence – relationships, work, daily life – God is acting. The kingdom of heaven that is near is not an apocalyptic threat or an announcement of the end of the world. It is the very nearness of God, made visible in Jesus. He not only announces the Kingdom, He embodies it. In his person we discover that God is present in the ordinary, in the small, in what often seems irrelevant to us. Conversion consists in allowing ourselves to be transformed by this presence and allowing it to change our way of looking at the world, at others, and at ourselves.
But Jesus does not live this mission in solitude. Immediately after announcing the Kingdom, he calls others. The Word is not announced in isolation. There is no Gospel without community, there is no mission without relationships. It is as if Jesus were also saying today to each one of us: I need you. I need you within a shared story, within a we that makes the announcement credible.
Called in the Everyday: A Fraternity That Announces the Kingdom
Jesus walks along the Sea of Galilee and sees two brothers. He does not see isolated individuals, he sees a relationship. That space, between the sea and the mainland, evokes the creative gesture of God in Genesis. It is a border place, of new creation. There, two brothers who could live in rivalry are called together. Their testimony will not only be with words, but with their way of being together, with the fraternity lived. The Kingdom is announced through transformed relationships.
They are casting the net into the sea, immersed in their daily work. Jesus calls them there, not outside of life, but in the midst of it. Casting the net is a gesture of waiting, of trust, of open hope. And it is at that moment when Jesus says to them: “I will make you fishers of men.” He does not take away what they are; he brings it to its fullness. Vocation does not annul identity, it fulfills it. Simon truly becomes Peter only in the encounter with Jesus.
To be fishers of men, in the biblical tradition, means to save, to rescue from exile, to return to life. It is not about dominating, but about liberating. The same happens with James and John, also called in their place of work. They leave the nets, the boat, even their father. Not because they reject their bonds, but because the call of Jesus reorders everything from the Kingdom.
Thus, the Gospel shows us that salvation happens in the concrete of life, that conversion is a change of perspective, and that the mission is always born from a response to a need. Today also, the Lord passes by our shore, in the midst of our daily life, and calls us to recognize his presence, to allow ourselves to be transformed by it, and to convert our relationships and our history into a living place of the announcement of the Kingdom.
