5th. Sunday
of Year (C)
(Isaiah 6:1-8; 1st. Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11)
Today,
dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we should learn from our Scriptural
readings something about the spiritual life of a Christian: something essential
for any would-be-faithful disciple of Christ, something quite distinct from the
good Christian life commonly and condescendingly lauded by the world around us.
In our
Gospel reading we heard that:
Jesus said
to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching men."
Just as
Simon and his companions used a net to catch fish, so Jesus would, He said, use
Simon and his companions to catch men.
Notice
that People of God, because many today dislike the thought of salvation being
mediated to them by other human beings, they object to the idea of owing their
salvation to God’s goodness in Christ and through the Church: they want to have
a direct personal relationship with God or with Jesus the Saviour. They think that in their case God should
catch them as does some fresh-water fisherman who goes to the edge of the river
and feeling under the rocks or the bank catches hold of one fish in his hand:
that is how God personally seeks and saves them, they would like to think. They cannot stomach a Church, Peter’s Church,
a human organisation, being used, like some vast net, to catch them along with
numberless others over the ages. They do
not want to feel, let alone express, humble gratitude before a universal Mother
Church, and they are positively unwilling to obey any Church authority
exercised by human beings such as the Pope, the bishops and, indeed, so-called
‘superiors’ of any kind. And yet, it
cannot be denied that Jesus did, indeed, say to Simon:
Do not be afraid; from now on you will be
catching men;
or, even
more explicitly, on a later occasion:
Amen,
amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives Me, and whoever
receives Me receives the one Who sent Me. (John 13:20)
That
refusal of many to accept the One True Church of Christ, their denial of Peter,
established by Jesus as the Rock of the Church and the Shepherd of His sheep,
is an expression of the human and worldly pride of modern man, and a prominent
characteristic of the false religious spirit abroad in our times. There are other aspects too that our readings
clarify for us today, aspects no less harmful to the true Christian spirit, no
less destructive of life with and for God in Jesus.
In the
first reading we heard how Isaiah had the remarkable vision of God in the glory
of His holiness and majesty:
I saw the
Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of His garment filling
the temple. Seraphim were stationed
above. One cried out to the other,
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!
All the earth is filled with His glory!"
That
would be enough to fill most human beings with awesome fear and humble
reverence; however, we are told that Isaiah:
heard the
voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?" "Here I am,” (he)
said, “send me!"
Does that
not seem to be somewhat presumptuous on the part of Isaiah?
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 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.
Now, some
of the Corinthians to whom Paul was writing were inclined to denigrate him: who
was he, after all? Everybody knew about
Peter individually and the group of Twelve Apostles who travelled far and wide
spreading the Gospel, and then, of course, there was James the brother of the
Lord and head of the Church in Jerusalem.
Who was this fellow Paul in comparison with them? As you heard, Paul was the first to admit
that he did not have the supreme authority of Peter, nor was he one of the
original Twelve. But whatever his detractors
might say or think, Paul would not shrink before them: he confidently asserted,
“Jesus, appeared to me also “. And not
only did He appear to Paul, He also chose to send Paul on a mission. In other words, he, Paul, was indeed an
Apostle, one sent by the risen Lord to proclaim the Gospel: and he had been
sent to the Gentiles, to Corinth, with that Good News. “No matter what some of you may think”, he
was saying to the Corinthians, “I am an Apostle, indeed, I am your
Apostle”
Even if
you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers;
for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (1 Corinthians 4:15)
So in our
readings today we have not only Isaiah pushing himself forward “Send me!” but
also Paul fighting strongly to have himself recognised and accepted as an
Apostle of Christ and on a par with the Twelve.
This was
most important for Paul because, even in the very early Church, it was the
Twelve who were, then as now, acknowledged to be of supreme importance. ‘All the apostles’, were those disciples of
Jesus who had seen the Risen Lord (cf. 1st. Corinthians 15:7), and had
subsequently been sent (‘apostle’ means “one sent”) on Gospel missions. In the beginning of his work Paul had been
sent on his first missionary voyage together with Barnabas by the Spirit in and
through the church at Antioch. But it
was Paul himself who had subsequently been directly commissioned and personally
guided by the Spirit to set out on his second missionary journey with Silas as
his chosen companion, before later undertaking his third and final mission.
Paul did
not want to be thought of then or remembered later on as merely one just
sent out by and on behalf of the church
of Antioch: he was, he insisted, a true, a full, Apostle. For, he had – despite his own unworthiness as
a persecutor of the Church – originally been chosen by the Risen Lord Jesus
Himself to proclaim and suffer for His Name, before being expressly sent by the
Spirit of Jesus on his second and third journeys; indeed, on all three
journeys, the Gospel he preached and the authority he exercised came from the
Risen Lord. In defence of his missionary
standing he even went on, in his second letter to these Corinthians, to sing
loudly -- but most affectingly -- his own praises as he compared himself with
all other apostles, whoever they might be, the Twelve or any others accorded
the title ‘apostle’ in the Church at that time:
Are they
ministers of Christ? -- I am talking like an insane person -- I am still more,
with far greater labours, far more imprisonments, far worse beatings, and
numerous brushes with death. (2 Corinthians 11:23)
People of
God, today the popular conception of Jesus and of a ‘good’ Christian is of
someone who is nice, 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
virtuous Christian is colourless, insipid and negative, in which the Gospel is
robbed of its unique and most sublime beauty, of all its inspiration to
challenge and power to sustain and fulfil.
Even the good works done for others become tasteless, because they are
human good deeds done for human satisfaction.
And since they are not directed towards God’s glory they remain within
the orbit of this world; and though they be reproduced over and over again they
cannot renew the world … and ultimately are condemned to become ordinary and
meaningless, just as the words “I forgive” become trite when they are not
spoken in prayer to God (“Father, forgive them”), but rather offered meaninglessly
to those who are not in any way either interested in, or asking for,
forgiveness.
Since I
am saying that the comfortable picture of a ‘good’ life painted by lovers of
this world is insipid, do I thereby say that Catholics and Christians should become
extremists or try to make themselves interesting or unusual? By no means!
Let us look again at Isaiah and Paul.
In the
first reading, the apparently “pushy” Isaiah had had his sin taken away, as he
tells us:
One of
the seraphim (from before God’s throne) flew to me, holding an ember which he
had taken with the tongs from the altar.
He touched my mouth with it.
“See,” he said, "now that this has touched your lips; your
wickedness is removed, your sin purged."
So you
can begin to appreciate that Isaiah had – most probably -- been in no sense
pushy: God had prepared Him for the work and so Isaiah was able to cry out with
both deep gratitude and 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 for which
he had been commissioned as Apostle to the Gentiles just as Peter was Apostle
to the Jews (cf. Galatians 2:7), might not be brought into doubt by others who
had more attractive worldly credentials or who were preaching a version of the
Gospel which was dependent on the old Jewish understanding whilst failing to
appreciate and fully respond to the new wine of the Gospel of Christ. Therefore, Paul was not really fighting for
himself, he was fighting for the Gospel entrusted to him by the Risen Lord, the
full Gospel for his new converts whom he would not allow to be saddled with the
old, worn out, Jewish prescriptions; he was, indeed, fighting for the truth of
Christ, the glory of God the Father, and the spiritual fulfilment of his
hearers.
Our
readings today, People of God, 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 modern morals, and who
want, above all, to avoid the Cross of Christ.
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 seek our own glory and set our own
standards.
Zeal for
God and self-forgetfulness, as displayed by Isaiah, easily lead to the world’s
mockery, disdain, and contempt; faithfulness to God and courage, as shown by
St. Paul, frequently bring down upon themselves criticism, antagonism, and
confrontation.
At the
very beginning of His own public ministry Our Blessed Lord made abundantly
clear for His specially chosen disciples the attitude they should have with
Him, in His service:
Getting
onto 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 signalled to their partners in the other boat to come to help
them. They came and filled both boats so
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.’
Humble
acceptance of their own insufficiency, simple confidence and sure trust in His
guidance and command, and deepest personal gratitude for His Personal love,
such were dispositions of the Apostles who left everything and followed Jesus.
Such
dispositions were taught by Jesus at the beginning of His relationship with His
specially chosen disciples; and they were most firmly anchored in their minds
and hearts when, as St. John tells us, – at the end of their earthly
relationship with Him and in His hour of supreme glory -- the Risen Lord
appeared to them by the Sea of Tiberias where He found them once again fishing
without success: He confirmed His original teaching, foreshadowing still
greater fruitfulness for their future labours, and offering the surest hope of
unfailing help and eternal reward.
Dear People of God, in all
things we should seek to know, love, and obey Jesus. The mode and measure of
our holiness is not ours to produce in compliance with human conceptions, but
His to give according to His unsearchable wisdom, inconceivable beauty, and
supreme goodness.
