HOMILY
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2010
Cast out into the deep
I have always loved the call of Isaiah, for three reasons:
First, Isaiah knows what a mess he is. He tells the Lord to leave him alone, for he is a man of unclean lips and an unclean heart. How could God possible use him? God’s made a mistake...he chose the wrong guy!
Second, God is persistent, incessant in his desire to get Isaiah to serve him. It was not you who chose me, Isaiah. I chose you. And I am God. Give me a break!
Third, it’s the way that God finally calls Isaiah. It’s not with convincing words or any form of moral persuasion. No. God takes a hot coal and places it to Isaiah lips and burns away his sins.
Through burning, through suffering, God purifies Isaiah, like a jeweler purifying silver by burning it, or a sculptor perfecting a statue by cutting stuff away, or a marathon runner strengthening his muscles by running that extra mile, God uses suffering to purify and make us ready to do his will.
I was at the North American College in Rome last week for the Vox CLara Meeting, and I love to visit NAC because, like Saint John’s, it is filled with seminarians: Young men so filled with love of Christ and His Church that all they want to do is be given the permission to give everything they’ve got to the Lord.
Like Isaiah, their only wish is to shout: “Here I am, Lord, send me!”
But they know suffering. When doubts assail them, when personalities collide, when young passions for truth become idealogical crusades, and when all those trials which life places in the path of every other twenty-something make them trip and fall, their hearts break, their eyes tear and self-doubt swells.
They’re human beings, just like you and me, with the same strengths and weaknesses, the same fears and hopes. But that’s just why God calls these modern-day Isaiah’s, so filled with human weakness, impurity, and doubt.
So he gives them suffering, calling them beyond their zones of comfort and safety, inviting them to join their suffering with the suffering of Christ, the High Priest and to make their lives one with his. And by suffering he purifies and strengthens them.
One of them was telling me of an exam he failed the other day. He had never failed at anything academic before in his life....this was one bright kid. But it was about a question in biblical Greek and he was taking the exam orally in Italian. He told me he had not slept the whole night before, or after the exam. But he smiled weakly and told me, don’t worry Monsignor, I know that God will get me through, for what does not kill me will only make me stronger.
Here’s this 25 year old kid, preaching to me, and like Jesus in today’s Gospel, calling me to cast out into deeper waters.
You heard the scene a couple minutes ago. They’ve been finishing all night and have caught not a single fish. Can’t we relate to that! And along comes the Lord and tells them to get back in the boat and to cast their nets into deeper waters.
He’s talking to us! Calling us to risk more, to give more, to suffer more, to cast out into deeper waters.
Where once we forgave those who have reached out to us, he calls us to forgive those who still hate us, revile us, and talk behind our back....into deeper waters!
As once we prayed each morning and evening and went to Mass on Sundays, he calls us to pray at mid-day and in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep and all through the day in thanksgiving for his infinite gifts....into deeper waters!
Where once we cared for elderly parents or friends, he calls us now to visit the stranger in the nursing home or the hospital or even the House of Correction into deeper waters!
Where once we said a prayer for the good works of the Cathedral Parish, he asks us to volunteer to unload food for the Food Pantry to help teach our Children in CCD, to join the Knights or the Choir or any one of innumerable ministries into deeper waters!
Where once we gave generously of our surplus to the works of this Cathedral Church, he calls us to give just a bit more of our substance, to accomplish the work of God....to maintain these aging buildings, to expand our Religious Education programs, and to maintain the tradition of being Catholic at the foot of Crown Hill that goes back 150 years to the days when Fr. John Power stood in a pulpit on that column and asked the people of Saint Paul’s to be just a bit more generous and a tad more open to doing the work of God.
And he doesn’t just ask you. He asks me, too. Father Matos and I are both among the largest contributors to this Cathedral Church. And I say that not to toot our horns, but to encourage you to toot yours, and to join us in setting out into deeper waters, that Christ might continue to accomplish great things through our hands.
Next week, I will ask you to return a pledge to increase your giving to this Cathedral Church in whatever way you possibly can. I already know of your extraordinary generosity...you are more giving than any parish I have ever been in. But now, I invite you to join me on this great journey and to set out into deeper waters, in response to the call of the Lord!
Saint Augustine once said, God does not just want our gifts, he wants us! Join me, in setting out into deeper waters and in being willing to say to him, Here I am, Lord. Send me!
Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector
