Catholic Commentary
The Call of James and John
21Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them.22They immediately left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Matthew 4:21–22 describes Jesus calling James and John, brothers and sons of Zebedee, to become his disciples as they mend nets in their boat with their father. They immediately abandon their boat, nets, father, and livelihood to follow Jesus, demonstrating the radical commitment and priority that discipleship demands over even the most sacred family obligations.
Jesus doesn't negotiate with the past—he calls you away from it entirely, and you either follow immediately or you're still mending nets.
The Typological and Spiritual Senses Allegorically, Zebedee sitting in the boat with his mended nets can be read, as St. Jerome suggested, as a figure of the old religious order — busy, industrious, but earthbound. The disciples who leave it represent the soul's movement from the security of established custom toward the risk of discipleship. The nets being mended point to the repair of human nature that Christ effects: he calls broken men and, through the act of calling itself, begins the work of katartismos — spiritual reconstitution. The boat, in patristic tradition, is often a figure of the Church; here the disciples leave one vessel (the world's craft) to enter another, the bark of Peter, into which they will soon help haul the great catch (Luke 5:1–11).
Catholic tradition reads this passage through the lens of vocation theology, and it has shaped the Church's understanding of the evangelical counsels and apostolic mission in profound ways.
The Primacy of the Divine Call. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "God calls each person by name" (CCC 2158) and that vocation is not self-constructed but received. The initiative in these verses is entirely Christ's — he sees, he calls. This pattern grounds the Catholic conviction that priestly and religious vocations originate in God's sovereign grace, not human ambition. The Second Vatican Council's Optatam Totius (§2) echoes precisely this structure: "The duty of fostering vocations belongs to the whole Christian community."
Leaving Father and Family. St. John Chrysostom, commenting on this passage in his Homilies on Matthew (Homily 14), marvels not at what the disciples left, but at the authority of the One who called: "What manner of man was this, that he should be able with a word to draw to himself men bound by such strong chains?" For Chrysostom, the swiftness of the response is proof of Jesus' divine majesty radiating through his humanity. Thomas Aquinas in the Catena Aurea synthesizes the Fathers to argue that the disciples' immediate response demonstrates perfecta obedientia — perfect obedience — which is the defining characteristic of apostolic consecration.
Evangelical Poverty and Detachment. The Catechism (CCC 2544) teaches that "Jesus enjoins his disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone." The leaving of the boat — economic capital — prefigures the evangelical counsel of poverty. Pope John Paul II in Pastores Dabo Vobis (§36) explicitly connects the apostolic call narrative to the priest's radical configuration to Christ, who himself "had nowhere to lay his head" (Matt 8:20). The act of leaving the boat thus becomes a founding icon of priestly and religious dispossession.
James and John as Apostolic Types. James will become the first apostle martyred (Acts 12:2); John will be the last, dying in old age — together they bracket the full spectrum of apostolic witness, from blood martyrdom to the long martyrdom of faithful endurance. Their mother will later ask for them to sit at Jesus' right and left (Matt 20:20–23): Jesus' answer — "Can you drink the cup that I am to drink?" — reveals that their call was always a call to share his Passion.
The call of James and John confronts the contemporary Catholic with a discomfiting question: what is your Zebedee? The father left in the boat is not vilified — he is simply no longer first. Most Catholics are not called to leave their families for religious life, but every baptized person is called to a reordering of loyalties, in which Christ holds unchallenged primacy.
In practical terms, this passage challenges the modern tendency to make vocation fit around existing commitments rather than the reverse. A parent discerning a deeper prayer life, a young professional sensing a call to ministry, a retiree drawn toward service — all face the same structure: something good and legitimate (a career, a family routine, a comfortable rhythm) must be relativized, perhaps surrendered, for the call to be answered.
The word eutheos — immediately — is also a rebuke to spiritual procrastination. St. Teresa of Ávila warned in The Interior Castle that "the devil knows that he has already lost the soul that fully turns to God, and so he tries to get it to delay." The disciples did not negotiate, schedule, or wait for a more convenient season. They left the boat. For the Catholic today, the question is not whether Jesus is calling — he always is — but whether we are still mending our nets when we should be walking away from them.
Commentary
Matthew 4:21 — "Going on from there, he saw…" Matthew's narrative pace here is deliberate and rhythmic. The Greek probaas ekeithen ("going on from there") places this second call as a purposeful continuation of the first (vv. 18–20), not a separate incident. Jesus is not wandering but actively seeking. The repetition of the verb eiden ("he saw") mirrors v. 18 — Jesus sees Simon and Andrew; now he sees James and John. The act of seeing in Matthew carries theological weight: this is not casual observation but sovereign election. Jesus perceives these men and calls them according to his own will, not their merit or readiness (cf. John 15:16, "You did not choose me; I chose you").
James and John are identified in a carefully layered way: they are "two other brothers," echoing the fraternal pairing of Peter and Andrew, and they are specifically located "in the boat with Zebedee their father." Matthew's mention of Zebedee is not incidental. Unlike the call of Peter and Andrew, where no parent is mentioned, here the father is present. This intensifies what is about to happen: the disciples will leave not just their trade but their father. The detail "mending their nets" (katartizontas ta diktua) is significant. The verb katartizō means to restore, repair, or make complete — it is used in the New Testament for the mending of broken things and even the equipping of the saints for ministry (Eph 4:12). Origen noted the irony: these men, in the act of repairing nets to catch fish, are themselves about to be caught and repurposed by the divine Fisherman.
Matthew 4:22 — "They immediately left the boat and their father, and followed him." Matthew's eutheos ("immediately") is the signature word of urgent, unconditional response. It appears in both calls (v. 20 and here), forming a structural bracket. But verse 22 escalates the cost: Peter and Andrew left "their nets" (tools of trade); James and John left "the boat and their father." The boat (ploion) represents capital — a more substantial economic investment than a net. And Zebedee is left behind in the boat, presumably with his hired servants (as Mark 1:20 specifies). This detail in Mark softens the abandonment somewhat — Zebedee is not left destitute — but Matthew omits it, keeping the focus on the radical rupture.
The abandonment of the father is the theological climax of the passage. In the ancient Mediterranean world, filial duty to one's father was among the most binding social obligations. Jesus himself elsewhere commands honor of father and mother (Matt 15:4; 19:19). Yet here, leaving one's father is precisely what following Jesus demands. This is not a contradiction but a hierarchy: the call of the kingdom supersedes every other loyalty, including the most sacred natural bonds. Jesus will make this explicit in Matt 10:37 — "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." The typological resonance with Abraham, who left his father Terah's household at God's command (Gen 12:1), is unmistakable.