Homily for the Vigil of the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

February 9, 2025
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8
Psalm 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

The readings from today’s liturgy offer us three examples of three distinct examples of vocation from God: Isaiah, Saint Peter, and Saint Paul. Each of these readings depict the following aspects of vocation: a sense of unworthiness in being called by God; a decision to care enough to respond to the call amidst the indifference of other bystanders; and a fresh sense of confidence that accompanies the decision to trust God and to place the response trusting God and putting one’s response into words and action.

The Lord calls Isaiah at the end of the reign of King Uzziah about 740 BC. This reign lasted for fifty years, with great prosperity for the ruling class, but at the end of Uzziah’s reign the prosperity suddenly crashes. The Lord calls Isaiah at this time to go out and call the people to conversion from their evil ways to which they had grown accustomed. The root of their evil ways was that they had grown indifferent to God and their responsibilities to respond to Him and to care for each other in that response. They became numb and indifferent to the offense that their sinful actions gave to God.

Isaiah’s response to his vocation is one of fear and trembling because he knows of his unworthiness and sinfulness. Isaiah’s call reveals that there remains an enormous difference between even the best of human beings and the blinding, ineffable goodness of God, and we need His mercy and grace to come into His presence. It shows that a vocation from God is not a matter of presumption nor is it a euphemism for a lifestyle choice. This grace of God given to Isaiah through the burning and purifying ember placed on his lips enables him to hear the Lord ask, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” and enables Isaiah to offer with courage and confidence, “Here I am, send me!”

Today in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ working of the miraculous catch of fish opens the eyes of Simon Peter, the seasoned fisherman, to Jesus’ full identity as the Son of God and not simply as just one of many itinerant preachers. The crowd does not have the same recognition and awareness that Peter and the sons of Zebedee do. The crowd is indifferent to the message of conversion that Christ offers even if they are enthusiastic about His miracles.

Saint Peter’s experience of the call of the Lord and of his response to the call were like those of Isaiah: a sense of unworthiness, sinfulness, and fear in the presence of the Lord: “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” This moment of graced insight for Peter and his fishing partners was the moment of their call to conversion from the Lord and their decision to follow Him with absolute trust, “They left everything and followed Him.”

Saint Paul, writing in his First Letter to the Corinthians, is understated about the dramatic events surrounding his vocation especially when considering the accounts given in the Acts of the Apostles. Saint Paul presents a much more intimate and humble account of his vocation. He does not mention being knocked off his horse by lightning, the voice of Christ, the temporary blindness, or even his time of retreat in Arabia. Paul relates his vocation story for the sake of the conversion and encouragement of the Church at Corinth, not as a compelling anecdote about himself.

Saint Paul relates not only the subjective experience of his conversion and vocation, but what he rightly understands to be most important about it: the centrality of Christ and eternal life and the Resurrection of the body offered by Christ to all believers who require forgiveness and conversion to grow in love for God and their neighbors.

The Corinthian Church had grown indifferent to the centrality of Christ and to the gift of eternal life offered uniquely by Christ. They were enamored and enthralled by charismatic gifts and words of prophecy. They very much embraced the altruistic and warm sentiments and values culled from the teachings of Jesus. They accepted the need for baptism, the practice of the Eucharistic meal, and even the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; but they were indifferent to the Resurrection of the Body and the eternal life that Christ offered them and that required a moral conversion on their part from a “good enough” life in accord with socially acceptable standards to a life reliant upon God’s Grace and conformed to Christ in love. They were a people who were impressed by Christ, who admired Him and impressed by His teachings, but were indifferent to the new life of Resurrection offered to the baptized.

As Pope Benedict XVI once remarked on today’s readings, “In these three experiences, we see how an authentic encounter with God brings the human being to recognize his poverty and inadequacy, his limitations, and his sins. Yet despite this weakness, the Lord, rich in mercy and forgiveness, transforms the life of human beings and calls them to follow Him. The humility shown by Isaiah, Peter, and Paul invites all who have received the gift of a divine vocation not to focus on their own limitations but rather to keep their gaze fixed on the Lord and on His amazing mercy so that their hearts may be converted and that they may continue joyfully, ‘to leave everything’ to Him.”

Our baptismal vocation from Christ as Catholics and as the Church should be accompanied by a humble sense of unworthiness, the requirement of contrition and conversion from sin, and the acceptance of the call with the confidence that comes from deciding to trust Christ by putting our response into humble and obedient service to those who are frequently indifferent or unaware of the need for Christ. These are the people to whom we belong and to whom the Lord sends us to serve just as shown by Isaiah, Peter, and Paul.

The Lord is calling us not to be indifferent to the complicated situation involved with immigration and asylum. He is calling us not to be indifferent to the plight of our neighbors whose right not to immigrate has been exploited by cartels. He calls us not to be indifferent to those here who are vulnerable to violence and crime perpetrated by gangs. He calls us not to be indifferent to the poor and those in need. Any current changes made by the leaders of our nation regarding immigration and asylum are matters of judgment, but they cannot be a license for us as Christians not to care and to respond to everyone in need on either side of the border. Political policies are influenced by morality; they don’t replace morality. The Christian response is never indifference because we serve Christ and He commands us to love one another.

As we approach the Eucharist, the nourishment of the Body and Blood of Christ that makes us one, let us remember that it is in the gift of the Eucharist that the Lord invites and enables us to give of ourselves not out of our riches and excess but out of our poverty and our need for His mercy. It is this poverty and neediness that enables us to answer Him like Isaiah, “Here I am , Lord, send me.”