2025/02/09 SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
- Scott Kumer, Associate Director of Liturgy & Music
The passage from Isaiah, chapter 6, is glorious and astonishing.
First, to set the scene… It was “in the year King Uzziah died” (circa 750 BC). Who was Uzziah? We read elsewhere in the Bible (2 Kings, 2 Chronicles) that he was mainly a good King, perhaps the most politically, militarily, and economically successful since King Solomon. And like Solomon, Uzziah would succumb to the glamor of power and prosperity, and lose his way. His death marked the end of a long, affluent era, but not of a holy or religiously observant era. A new, uncertain time was about to begin, accompanied by a severe providential message that Isaiah would come to deliver.
And now to the stunning vision… The Lord, in His majesty, pays a visit to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem while Isaiah is taking his turn in the priestly rotation of offering sacrifice. The Lord is seated on a high and lofty throne as the train of the divine garment fills the Temple. Above are Seraphim – the highest order in the nine choirs of angels – who cry out Kadosh! / Sanctus! / Holy! causing the structure to quake. The Temple is saturated with smoke. It is a glimpse of heavenly worship, and part of the Liturgy of the Eucharist through which we worship God here on earth:
And so, with the Angels and all the Saints we declare Your glory, as with one voice we acclaim:
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of Your glory!
I recently attended overnight Adoration. A short while before I arrived, the priest had just finished incensing the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance. The whole chapel was suffused with aromatic haze – thick, motionless, and gently stratified. At that moment, this passage from Isaiah came to mind. The Lord was there. His glory was there. Angels were there (no, I didn’t see them or hear them). A surreal experience to be had in the small hours of the morning! And so Isaiah’s vision remains fresh and true in our own age, with our Lord ever-present in tabernacles throughout the world! He will never leave us or forsake us, as He promised. Are we humbled and overcome with awe, as we should be?
When immersed in the presence of God, we more readily become aware of our sinfulness and unworthiness. Isaiah exclaims, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips…" In the Gospel reading, Peter has a similar reaction to the miraculous catch of fish, so massive that it rips apart his nets and nearly sinks two boats with the crewmen on board. “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” In their self-acknowledged unworthiness, God neither condemns nor rejects Isaiah and Peter, but raises them up with a mission. In the first case, that of prophet. In the second, that of disciple and apostle: “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching men.”
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” May each one of us be given the generosity of spirit to respond with Isaiah’s humility and childlike eagerness: “Here I am, send me!”