CONSECRATD BY HIS TOUCH

SUNDAY, FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Isa 6:1-2,3-8; Ps 138:1-5,7-8; 1 Cor 15:1-11; Lk 5:1-11

Our Holy Vocation

The first reading is the inaugural vision of Isaiah the prophet. He narrates his overwhelming encounter with the God of Israel. He was of the priestly family. He was in the Temple for his priestly duties. He had a vision of Yahweh that changed his life and gave it a new orientation. “In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord of Hosts seated on a high throne; his train filled the sanctuary; above him stood seraphs, each one with six wings. And they cried out to one another in this way, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. His glory fills the whole earth.’” In this vision, God opened his eyes to perceive a fuller reality than his physical senses could apprehend. As we stated last week, these spiritual realities are what faith proves their existence. The perception of these realities always brings about a new orientation in us. It was not different for Isaiah; what he saw filled him with fear and trepidation, for his innermost being was laid bare before him. He understood his weaknesses and acknowledged and confessed his sinfulness. “What a wretched state I am in! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have looked at the King, the Lord of Hosts.”

As the seraphs testified, the glory of God fills the whole earth but remains invisible to our physical eyes. It is revealed only to the eyes of faith, which see it as a mystery represented by the smoke or cloud. Isaiah saw it as the smoke that filled the Temple, and the author of Hebrews presented it as a cloud in which the witnesses gather around Christ. The cloud of mystery will remain as long as we continue in our mortal life; it will turn to clear vision only when we enter the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The vision of the mystery or glory of God is always a prelude to God’s illumination of our minds and inflammation of our hearts with the fire of love. For this to happen, God must first purge us of our sins and unfaithfulness. The divine light from spiritual visions gives us a fuller perception of heavenly realities without and within. By without here, we do not mean physical realities outside but spiritual realities that we have not yet conceived, and by within, we mean our misrepresentations of them in us. These misrepresentations of the heavenly realities in us are the troublers of our conscience. Our ignorance of God causes our orientation away from his will.

The purging of Isaiah’s sins and imperfections was through live coal taken from the altar as a sacrament. The central meaning of the symbol here is consecration and sacrifice; the altar is the symbol of consecration, and live coal is the symbol of sacrifice. By touching Isaiah with it, the seraph consecrated his lips, thereby consecrating his mind and heart from where the lips get utterances. Thus, the consecrated purges away our sins and consecrates us to God. Saint Paul was consecrated by his contact with the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. “Well then, in the first place, I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures.” The Risen Lord is the real live coal from the heavenly altar. He consecrates everyone he touches: Cephas, the twelve, more than five hundred brothers, James, Paul, etc.  

We are encouraged to keep the memory of our encounter with the Lord and relive it often in prayer and thanksgiving, for that is the core of our consecration to the Lord and his Gospel. “I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, the gospel that you received and in which you are firmly established; because the gospel will save you only if you keep believing exactly what I preached to you—believing anything else will not lead to anything.” The Gospel illustrates the whole understanding of encounter, confession of sinfulness, purification, and consecration. Our Lord’s encounter with Peter gave him a vision of God’s glory and knowledge of his weakness and sinfulness, just as Isaiah had. “When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus saying, ‘Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.’ For he and all his companions were completely overcome by the catch they had made; so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners.” Jesus consecrated all of them to the Gospel, for he committed them to preaching the Gospel. “Do not be afraid; from now on it is men you will catch.’ Then, bringing their boats back to land, they left everything and followed him.” God reveals his glory to us to help us believe firmly and commit ourselves to his will.

Let us pray: Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care, that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace, they may be defended always by your protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.