"Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?"

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            In my work in our parish school, and on the monthly occasions when I teach theology at Lansing Catholic high school, I have found that generally students fall into one of two categories when you ask them a question.  The first type of student is the “pick me, pick me!” students who can barely control themselves because they know the answer and they want to prove it.  The other type of student is the “Dear God, do not let Fr. Anthony call on me!” students who try to avoid eye contact and would rather do just about anything than be forced to answer a question, whether they know the right answer or not.

            We appear to have both types of people in our first reading and our Gospel today.  Isaiah is like the first type of student.  As Isaiah is caught up in ecstasy, seeing a vision of God on the throne with the Seraphim and the heavenly hosts, with incense rising, he is at first made aware of his sinfulness, but then, having been cleansed, he is all-too-ready to respond when the Lord asks, “‘Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?’” 

            In our Gospel, we see the second type of student in the person of St. Peter.  He is reluctant, doesn’t think he can succeed (both at fishing and at being a disciple), is all too aware of his sinfulness, and does not want to be called on.  But the Lord still chooses him, and, as we know the rest of the story, Jesus chooses Him to lead His Church as the first pope.

            God still calls.  Jesus still calls.  The Lord still asks, “Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?”  Jesus still asks us to be His disciples and put out into the deep waters.  Are we the type of person who says with Isaiah, “‘Here I am…send me!’”, or are we the type of person who says with St. Peter, “‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am…sinful’”?  In both cases, God is calling us.

            Some of you single men out there in the pews God is calling to be a priest.  I am sure of it!  God is calling you to abandon the safety and security of doing what only you think is best, and to follow Jesus in a new way, to conform your life to His, to be conformed through the Sacrament of Holy Order to Jesus the Priest so that His people can continue to be fed and nourished by the grace of the sacraments, especially the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.  Without priests, the People of God will not have their sins forgiven, nor will they be able to be so closely united to Jesus through Holy Communion. 

            Some of you single men or single women out there in the pews God is calling to be a consecrated brother or sister, or consecrated virgin.  Some of you God is calling to leave everything behind and to live out by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in a religious community the life of Jesus who was poor, chaste, and obedient to the Father’s will.  Some of you women who have preserved as a treasured gift your virginity are called to consecrate your virginity to God, to hand it over to Him and to be espoused to Jesus Christ, the Divine Bridegroom for all eternity, even as you live in the world.

            Many of you men and women out there in the pews God is calling or has called to be married and be parents.  Others of you are single.  God is no less calling you to be holy.  In fact, God is calling you in a special way to sanctify the world by your presence, in ways that priests, religious, and consecrated virgins are not called.  God needs you to fill society with the leaven of the Gospel: your homes, your workplace, your rest, your vacation, politics, so that the City of Man looks more and more like the City of God.  God calls you to offer every part of your life to Him as an acceptable sacrifice, as Lumen gentium from the Second Vatican Council reminds us: “For all [the laity’s] works, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily occupations, their physical and mental relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life, if patiently borne—all these become ‘spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.’”  Without you, providing an example of holiness of life and fidelity to the teachings of God through His Church, the faith is not passed on, and people do not treasure the pearl of great price that a relationship with God is.

            Maybe we’re afraid that we’re too sinful.  So was Isaiah, so was St. Peter.  Maybe we don’t think we have what it takes.  If Isaiah or St. Peter knew everything that was ahead of them, they may have turned back.  But day-by-day they were strengthened by God to preach the Gospel, so others could believe.  This Wednesday we begin Lent.  Use this holy time to draw closer to the Lord, to learn more about Him, to get to know Him so that you are comfortable saying “yes” to Him.  All of the things we do—the fasting, the abstaining from meat, the giving up of certain good things, the extra acts of penance—all of these are meant to open us up so that it is easier for us to say “yes” to God.  It is all too easy to just do the “Lent thing” again.  Don’t waste your precious time just floating by.  Put out into deep waters!  Is it scary?  In some ways, yes!  It calls for radical trust in God to actually live according to the Gospel.  But Jesus won’t let you sink amid the waves of sea.  He will help you to make a great catch; He will help you to spread His Word that brings people happiness, and saves them from eternal death.  In the Holy Name of God I ask: Whom shall we send?  Who will go for us?  What is your answer?

The Adventure Awaits!

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            It seems, at least historically, that the American people have an adventurous nature.  Look at the way we spread across this land, moving out into the unknown to establish new States.  While I’m not positive, it wouldn’t surprise me that an American invented the sport (though I consider it more rash than adventurous) where you get a snowmobile up to terrific speeds in order to do flips and twists in the air, before trying to land it safely on the ground. 

G. K. Chesterton

            Given this adventurous nature, there should be droves of people lining up to be Catholic.  Now, Catholic and adventurous may not always go together in your mind.  Our liturgy, though altered in noticeable ways in the late 1960s and early 1970s, dates back (at least in its basic form) to the first century, and old and adventurous do not always go together.  It is sometimes said that those who are Catholic are simply afraid of pursuing other beliefs and opening their minds to other realities.  The Catholic Church, fairly or unfairly, is often associated with conservativism, of holding on to the past, rather than the liberalism of plowing ahead on a new, undiscovered path.  But, as G.K. Chesterton said, “People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe.  [But] there was never anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.”

            What do I mean?  What does Chesterton mean?  Well, look at our readings today.  In our first reading, God calls Jeremiah to be His prophet, His spokesman.  But being a prophet for God means that God’s own Chosen People were going to fight against Jeremiah.  And so God assures Jeremiah that God has made the prophet “a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass.”  Jeremiah had to tell the people, especially the leaders of Judah, that they could not trust in foreign alliances to save them; that they needed to turn away from the false gods of Canaan and Assyria; that only by fidelity to God would salvation come.  But the people preferred the foreign alliances and the idolatry that came with it.  It would be no easy task to try to get the people to turn away from sin and be faithful to God.  It took a true adventurous heart to say “yes” to God’s call and fight the cultural norms of the day.

            Or, look at our Gospel.  What an adventure to follow a guy who claims to be the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies, but looks exactly the same as everybody else; is thought of as the son of Joseph, and has been doing miracles everywhere else, but when it comes to His own home town, nothing major happens.  And then, rather than just passing by, Jesus condemns the people’s disbelief, and says that God prefers the pagans to the Chosen People because at least they have faith, as in the days of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, or in the days of Elisha and Naaman the Syrian.  And, based upon this critique, the people, Jesus’ own neighbors, try to drive Jesus off a hill to at least do Him bodily harm, if not to kill Him.  What an adventure to follow the guy that everyone wants to put to death!

            Catholicism now is no less an adventure now than it was when Jesus was founding His Church in the first century.  It takes real courage to follow a Person who is not half-God and half-Human, but 100% God and 100% Human, without any mixture or confusion.  It is so much easier to say that Jesus was just a really good, but really misunderstood, sage.  It is so much easier to assert that no one has a special office and we can all just vote on what we want to believe.  But as a Catholic, we’re not into easy.  Our faith is adventurous in what we believe and in what we preach.

            The Lord God still reminds us that we are called to be “a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass against the whole land.”  We are not necessarily morally better, but we are called to be faithful to the truth that God has communicated through His Church, governed by the apostles and their successors.  The gift of truth that we have received, the Spirit of Truth who leads us into all truth, is not meant to be something that we just hold by ourselves in smugness, but spread to others so that they can find the freedom of living as a child of God.  But we will get pounded for this.  When we defend marriage as created by God between one man and one woman we are called bigots.  God’s truth is called lies, light is called darkness, and good is called evil. 

            It is in those times that we should turn back to St. Paul and his second letter to Timothy:

proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.  For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desire and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.  But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist.

Of course, we are called to preach the truth in love, as our second reading reminds us, so that we are not “a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.”  We are called to invite to the joy of the truth.  We are called to propose, but not to impose.  But this love is not the emotion which encourages someone to do whatever he or she wants, but the will for the best that the other person can be.  And in the end, being Catholic means that we believe and hold firm to teachings that the world considers folly.

Being Catholic is an adventure, and is not for the faint of heart.  But a crown of righteousness awaits those who are faithful and complete the adventure on earth.  “People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe.  There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.”