LITURGY IN FOCUS

PREPARING FOR NEXT WEEKEND

Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Reflection: Awesome, fascinating mysteries

By SISTER MARY McGLONE

“Go out into the deep.”

Think about it, that’s what the son of a carpenter said to professional fishers. They did it, perhaps just to humor him — and took in the biggest catch of their lives. A fluke? A trick? Or a sign of things to come? Whatever, it overwhelmed them.

Does anything overwhelm us today? When we can talk face to face with someone across the world, fly anywhere we wish, and carry phones and watches that effectively replace TV, libraries, computers, cash and credit cards, what can really astonish us?

Surely, we’re terrified at the power of hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires — at least if we experience them in person. We could add any number of other dangerous things that cause everything in our heart, mind and body to panic and concentrate on how to save ourselves or our vulnerable loved ones. This kind of being overwhelmed is rooted in fear. 

There’s another realm of mystifying experiences that awakens an awe that moves our guts like fear, but differently. For lovers of Latin, it’s called mysterium tremendum et facinans, an awesome, fascinating mystery. This is no rational experience, but a breathtaking and irresistible awareness of the presence of the beauty, immensity and truth of the divine. 

Many people experience this in holy places — they feel a tremendous and peaceful presence that permeates the atmosphere.

Isaiah experienced this mysterium in a heavenly vision. For Peter and companions, it happened when they obeyed the preacher on their boat. The experience brought all of them to their knees — figuratively, if not literally. They felt insignificant and unworthy in the presence of something so great — a very sane and normal response!

Intriguingly, the message they heard during their experience took little account of their feelings of dread. When Isaiah cried, “Woe is me! … I am unclean,” an angel touched him with fire and declared, “Your wickedness is removed.” So then, when he heard the question, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah could answer like a kid being picked for a team, “Here I am, send me!”

The fishermen who welcomed Jesus onto their boat and then got their catch were stunned. Nothing in their experience prepared them to interpret what was going on. In response to their statements of unworthiness, Jesus invited them to step beyond fear so they could sacramentalize their profession, consecrating their skills to spreading the news that God was actively reigning among them.

These are stories about our human vocation. They make no more sense than falling in love. Such experiences are uncontrollable, real, unexplainable and transforming. They become the touchstone of one’s life because they involve an encounter between one’s deepest self and God our Creator.

Today’s readings suggest that we ask ourselves if we have become too sophisticated or technical or just too busy to experience the mysterium tremendum. Our scriptural tradition suggests that God keeps vigil for us, providing opportunities for us to become caught up in the wonder of life waiting to take shape in and among us. God longs for us to assume the fullness of our vocation to know and be the good news Christ preached.

It’s easy to see the life-threatening natural and human-produced dangers around us. Like Isaiah of the unclean lips and the self-described sinful fishers, it’s easy to let ourselves be paralyzed when confronting powers beyond our comprehension. 

Remember, the call to faith begins with the words, “Do not be afraid.” The rationale for acting with audacious courage comes from the fact that we know we cannot do it with our own power.

Isaiah’s vision included two questions: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” All Isaiah needed to do was offer. Without any clue about what was to come, the intense awareness of goodness he experienced impelled him to say, “Here I am!” That transformed him from spectator to prophet. 

The same goes for the fishermen. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid, you are on the brink of transformation.” They could share his mission and they were only required to allow God to work through them.

As in the days of Isaiah and Peter, God continues to be the great seeker, lover, even, as Jeremiah said, a seducer (Jeremiah 20:7). The God of Jesus wants us, all we are, in the depths of who we are. The God of Jesus depends on simple human messengers who are willing to be overwhelmed and transformed and sent. 

When the experience of evil feels as palpable as the mysterium, we may well be afraid. Yet, our very distress constitutes the call to stand up against destruction and injustice. 

We’re not called to do it alone. All we need is to say, “Here I am. Send me!” The sender will handle the rest. 

Reading I

(Isaiah 6: 1-2a, 3-8)

In the year King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,
with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above.
They cried one to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook
and the house was filled with smoke.
Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
living among a people of unclean lips;
yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me,
holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
He touched my mouth with it, and said,
“See, now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said; “Send me!”

Responsorial Psalm

(Psalm 138: 1-5, 7-8)

R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;
I will worship at your holy temple
and give thanks to your name.
R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

Because of your kindness and your truth;
for you have made great above all things
your name and your promise.
When I called, you answered me;
you built up strength within me.
R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

All the kings of the earth shall give thanks to you, O LORD,
when they hear the words of your mouth;
and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD:
“Great is the glory of the LORD.”
R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

Your right hand saves me.
The LORD will complete what he has done for me;
your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;
forsake not the work of your hands.
R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

Reading II

(I Corinthians 15: 1-11)

I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he was buried;
that he was raised on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
After that, Christ appeared to more
than five hundred brothers at once,
most of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep.
After that he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles.
Last of all, as to one born abnormally,
he appeared to me.
For I am the least of the apostles,
not fit to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me has not been ineffective.
Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;
not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.
Therefore, whether it be I or they,
so we preach and so you believed.

Gospel

(Luke 5: 1-11)

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God,
he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.
He saw two boats there alongside the lake;
the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.
Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,
he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore.
Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,
“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”
Simon said in reply,
“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,
but at your command I will lower the nets.”
When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish
and their nets were tearing.
They signaled to their partners in the other boat
to come to help them. 
They came and filled both boats
so that the boats were in danger of sinking.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him,
and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
who were partners of Simon.
Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid;
from now on you will be catching men.”
When they brought their boats to the shore,
they left everything and followed him.