5th. Sunday of Year (C)
(Isaiah 6:1-8; 1st.
Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11)
Today, my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we can learn
from the Scriptural readings something about the spiritual life of a faithful
disciple of Christ, as distinct from the ‘expectations’ of pseudo-Christians and
the secular world around us.
We heard in the Gospel reading:
(Simon) and all who were with
him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus
said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men."
Just as Simon and his companions used a net to catch fish,
so Jesus would -- He said -- use Simon, and with Simon his companions, to catch
men.
Notice that People of God, because very many today dislike
the thought of salvation depending not only on God’s goodness to us in Christ, but
also, through the Church; they prefer to think that if there is a
loving Saviour-God they should be able to strike up a direct personal
relationship with Him or with Jesus the Saviour: why should they need to feel indebted
to and grateful for a universal Church? Moreover,
they are positively antagonistic to the idea that they should have to obey a
human authority such as the Pope, the Vicar of Christ.
And yet, for all that, it cannot be denied that Jesus did
indeed say to Simon:
Do not
be afraid; from now on you will catch men.
That unwillingness of many to accept the idea of the One
True Church of Christ, their denial of Peter established by Jesus as the one Rock
and Shepherd serving and maintaining the oneness of His sheep in His one
Catholic (universal) Church, is an expression of the sinful pride of modern
man, and of the pseudo-religious spirit abroad in our times.
In the first reading we heard how Isaiah had a remarkable
vision of God in the glory of His holiness and majesty:
I saw the Lord sitting on a
throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six
wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two
he flew. And one cried to another and
said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of
His glory!"
Such a vision would be enough to fill any human being with
awesome fear and humble reverence. But
we are told that Isaiah also:
Heard the voice of the Lord,
saying: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then Isaiah said, "Here am I! Send
me."
Does that not seem to be presumptuous on the part of
Isaiah? Does not the worldly picture of a
good Christian in such a situation involve the humble recital of words such as
“I am not worthy”?
Let us now turn to St. Paul and observe his behaviour, for
he tells us that:
Jesus appeared to Cephas,
then to the Twelve. After that He was
seen by over 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.
Think now how Jesus understood the word ‘Apostle’ which He bestowed on the Twelve. For Jesus loved to repeatedly say of Himself that He had been “sent by – was the ‘Apostle of’ – His Father”!
Jesus Himself only Personally chose
and appointed the Twelve as His Apostles to proclaim His Gospel of Salvation to
the whole world. He did send out 70
others to places He Himself was shortly to visit in His public Ministry, they
were also called Apostles later on, but not by Jesus Himself. As former Pope Benedict so beautifully says,
the ‘Twelve’, personally chosen by Jesus, were to be sent on their world-wide missions
as ‘specialists in Jesus’, basing himself on this episode in St.
John’s Gospel (1:35-39):
The next day John (the
Baptist) was there again with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus
walk by, he said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God’.
The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus saw them following Him and said, ‘What
are you looking for?’ They said, ‘Rabbi,
where are You staying?’ He said to them,
‘Come and see.’ So, they went and stayed
with Him that day. Andrew, the brother
of Simon Peter was one of the two who followed Jesus.
Only the Twelve were called to such personal, daily, fellowship
with Jesus of Nazareth. Paul, for his part, was personally chosen by the heavenly
Lord Jesus Who sent the disciple Ananias to heal Paul blinded after the Lord’s apparition
to him:
The Lord said to (Ananias),
‘Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of Mine to
carry My name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites, and I will show him what
he will have to suffer for My name.’
(Acts: 9:15-16)
Paul was the first to admit that he did not have the
supreme authority of Peter, and that he was not one of the original
Twelve. But whatever his detractors thought
or said, Paul would not shrink before them: he always confidently asserted,
“Jesus, appeared to me also “. Paul was,
indeed, an ultimate Apostle, commissioned and sent by the risen Lord: in Paul’s
case, however, called and sent by the heavenly Risen Lord -- to proclaim
the Gospel he received through revelation of Jesus (Galatians 1:12). He was in
no way simply a representative of the Twelve (Galatians 2:7-9):
When those who were reputed
to be important saw that I (Paul) had been entrusted with the gospel to the
uncircumcised, just as Peter to the circumcised, when they recognized the grace
bestowed upon me, James and Cephas and John who were reputed to be pillars gave
me their right hand in partnership.
Paul being sent to the Gentiles, arrived at Corinth with
that Good News, able to declare with full confidence in God, not men: “No
matter what some of you may think, I am an Apostle; indeed, I am your
Apostle” (1 Corinthians 4:15):
For though you might have ten
thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ
Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
And so it is, that in our readings today we have not only
heard of the great prophet Isaiah pushing himself forward “Send me!”, but also of
Paul fighting vigorously and repeatedly
to have himself recognised as an Apostle: the Gospel he preached and the
authority he exercised came from the Risen Lord Himself. He even went on, in his second letter to these
Corinthians, to sing his own praises as he compared himself to other apostles,
not with the Twelve, but with all those others spoken of as apostles in the
early Church:
Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool, I am more: in labours more
abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths
often. (2 Cor 11:23)
Dear People of God, notice how wonderfully close
Paul was to Jesus! He probably knew
nothing of the words the Lord used when sending Ananias to restore his sight,
but he lived and appreciated his calling in exact accordance with Jesus’
very words! He went exclusively to the
Gentiles – and to those Kings and Israelites among the Gentiles – and boasted
when he considered it necessary to vindicate his Apostolic authority; but he
boasted only of the sufferings he had embraced for the name of
Jesus! Jesus knew His man and
Paul loved the Lord Who, he so firmly believed, had died for him!!
This man is a chosen
instrument of Mine to carry My name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites, I
will show him what he will have to suffer for My name.’
Today the popular picture of Jesus and of a good Christian
is of someone who is nice, always good, never nasty, never pushy, never
fighting for self in any way; always smiling at children and patting dogs,
always speaking soothing words and totally incapable of condemning sin or
punishing evil-doers. In other words,
the world’s picture of a Christian is colourless, insipid and negative, and so
the Gospel is robbed of all challenge, of all its power to inspire and
strengthen. Even the good works done by
such Christians for others are tasteless, because they are human good deeds
done for human purposes and human satisfaction; since they are not directed
towards God’s glory, they remain within the orbit of this world, and cannot
renew the world. Ultimately, indeed,
they are condemned to become ordinary and meaningless, just as the words “I
forgive” can become trite when they are not spoken in response to Jesus’ prayer
to God (“Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive ...”), but rather
offered meaninglessly and spoken tritely to those who are not in any way either
interested in, or asking for, forgiveness.
Since I am saying that the comfortable picture of the good
life painted by lovers of this world is insipid, do I thereby say that
Catholics and Christians should become extremists? By no means!
Let us look again at the “pushy” prophet Isaiah, and the “self-assertive”
Apostle Paul.
In the first reading, Isaiah who said, "Here am I.
Send me!", had had his sin taken away.
He tells us that:
One of the seraphim (from
before God’s throne) flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had
taken with the tongs from the altar. And
he touched my mouth with it, and said: "Behold, this has touched your
lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged."
So, you can realise that Isaiah had in no proud sense been pushy:
God was preparing and encouraging him for a work He had in mind for him, and
Isaiah had to learn to speak with confident zeal in answer to God’s inspiring
call.
Look again at St. Paul.
He was fighting to establish his own authority indeed, but only so that
the Gospel truth he had proclaimed to the Corinthians might not be brought into
disrespect or doubt by others with more apparently attractive Jewish-Christian credentials,
and who were preaching a Jewish version of the Gospel which was failing to
appreciate, and fully respond to, the new wine that Jesus had brought. Therefore, Paul was not fighting for himself,
he was fighting for the authentic Good News of Jesus, for his new converts whom
he would not allow to be saddled with the old, worn out, Jewish prescriptions;
he was, indeed, fighting for Christ and the glory of God the Father.
Our readings today, People of God, therefore encourage and
guide us to authentic spirituality as disciples of Jesus. We are not to conform to, settle for,
the flabby, colourless, “goodness” of those who want to win the approval of
modern society and accommodate Christian doctrine to modern morals; people who
want, above all, to avoid the Cross of Christ (witness the Church in Germany!).
Yet neither are we to seek to make a name for ourselves, striving to be
dynamic and contradictory, flaunting authority, and ignoring normal
sensibilities. No, we have to despise
both those attitudes: we must not be so weak as to seek the world’s good
pleasure; we must not be so proud as to set our own standards. In all things we have to seek to know, love,
and obey Jesus: we cannot hide behind ignorance (ignorance is bliss!!),
nor must we pretend love (mere words and fine gestures), for only as
sincere disciples of Jesus, obedient to His guiding Spirit in our lives, will
we be enabled to become true children of our heavenly Father.
