Other Sunday and Holy Day Readings
5th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Cycle C)
Readings:
Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8
Psalm 138:1-5, 7-8
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11
Abbreviations: NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name YHWH (Yahweh).
God reveals His divine plan for humanity in the two Testaments, and that is why we read and relive the events of salvation history in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. The Catechism teaches that the Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).
The Theme of the Readings: Receiving the Call to Discipleship
Today's readings address the call to discipleship and service
for the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, St. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles,
and the leader of the Apostles, St. Peter.
In the First Reading, in the 8th-century BC, God transported Isaiah into His holy, heavenly Sanctuary to commission Isaiah to be His prophet and speak His words to the covenant people of Israel. The experience of coming into the presence of the holy and eternal God was overwhelming for Isaiah. He was immediately ashamed of his sinfulness and human inadequacy. In response to Isaiah's shame and repentance, God, in His grace, purified Isaiah and forgave his sins, spiritually preparing Isaiah to take up his mission. He immediately answered God's call to servanthood by responding, "Here I am...send me!" It is a response all professed Christians must be ready to make.
In the Responsorial Psalm (attributed to King David), the psalmist expressed gratitude for the blessings from his close relationship with the Lord. He vowed to sing God's praises in the Temple liturgy and give thanks for God's kindness to him because of the truth of His Word and God's faithfulness to His promises. If the psalmist is indeed David, he speaks prophetically of God's future gift of universal salvation when the Gentile kings and their peoples come to acknowledge the greatness of Israel's God. This event will occur after the resurrection of David's heir, Jesus of Nazareth, who will send out His disciples to convert the Gentile nations that will respond with faith and repentance, receiving the baptism of salvation and entering the Kingdom of Christ's Church!
In the Second Reading, St. Paul recalls his experience when he encountered the Resurrected Christ who called him to discipleship. Paul admits his inadequacy to be called an apostle because he had persecuted the Church before his conversion. However, he says, Christ forgave him, and Paul testifies that he has effectively answered his divine calling because of God's grace.
In the Gospel Reading, St. Simon-Peter has an experience similar to the divine calls of Isaiah and St. Paul. As he stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Peter was overwhelmed by his sinful human nature when confronted by the sinless Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who called Peter to "Follow Me!" Falling on his knees in repentance, Peter was embarrassed by his sins and asked the sinless Christ to depart from him. But Jesus extended His divine grace to Peter, calming his fears and answering that he would be successful in his mission to serve the Lord as "a fisher of men." Peter would call the men and women of his generation to faith in believing that Jesus is the promised Davidic Redeemer-Messiah bringing salvation not only to Israel but also extending His gift of salvation to all men and women in the human family.
What is so extraordinary concerning the call to discipleship to these three men is that they had the faith and courage to leave everything in their past life behind to follow God's divine invitation. However, their experience is not unique. Throughout salvation history, God continues to call faithful men and women to discipleship and take up the mission to carry the Gospel of salvation to the ends of the earth. Have you answered that same invitation to offer your life in service to the Lord God to share the good news of His Gospel of salvation in your family, your community, and the world? Have you been willing to leave behind what is temporal in this life to seek what is eternal in the next life?
The First Reading Isaiah 6:1-8 ~ Isaiah's Vision of
the Heavenly Court and his call to Divine Service
1 In the year
King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the
train of his garment filling the Temple [Hekal]. 2 Seraphim were stationed above; each of them
had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their
feet, and with two they hovered aloft. 3"Holy,
holy, holy is the LORD of hosts [Yahweh Sabaoth], they cried one to the other. All
the earth is filled with His glory." 4 At
the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook, and the house was filled
with smoke. 5 Then I said: "Woe is
me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean
lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts [Yahweh Sabaoth]." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding an
ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 He touched my mouth with it. "See," he said, "now
that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged." 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying:
"Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" "Here am;" I said, "send me!" [...] = literal
Hebrew translation.
Isaiah received a theophany of God and experienced his prophetic call in c. 740 BC (some sources list the date as 742 BC) in the year of King Uzziah of Judah's death. It was the year when Uzziah's son, Jotham, succeeded him as the Davidic king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and when Menahem was king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (reigned 743-738).
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with
the train of his garment filling the Temple [Hekal].
In his vision, Isaiah was taken up into the heavenly
Temple. He saw Yahweh, the sovereign King over all humanity, sitting on His
throne like an earthly king. The Hebrew word Hekal is the same word for
the Holy Place of the Jerusalem Temple, divided into the Holy Place and the
Holy of Holies (i.e., 1 Kng 6:3, 5, 17, 33; 7:21-50; etc.). The worship space
of the desert Sanctuary and the Jerusalem Temple were patterned after the
heavenly Temple and its furnishings (Ex 25:8-9).
Verse 1 records that Isaiah "saw" (ra'ah can mean "saw, discern, or perceive") the Lord seated on a high throne. Scripture records that no human can see the face of God and live (see Gen 19:21 and as God told Moses in Ex 33:20; Dt 18:16), so Isaiah probably thought his death was imminent. But did he see God or only perceive a visually ill-defined figure seated on a throne covered by His garment and obscured by the smoke of the incense (Rev 8:3-5) that filled the Sanctuary? However, there were various individuals who were permitted to see God's representative, the "Angel of the Lord," especially where there was an element of encouragement and confirmation (i.e., Gen 16:9-13; 28:13-15; 32:31; Ex 24:9-11; 34:5-10; Judg 6:11-24; 13:33).
2 Seraphim were
stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with
two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.
The seraphs (seraphim is the plural in Hebrew) were
a class of angels. The word seraph means "fiery ones" or "burning ones." They
are the attendants or guardians who stand before the divine throne. They have a
human shape but are equipped with six wings: two to cover their face to shield
their eyes from the magnificence of the Almighty, two to cover their bodies in
modesty, and two for flying. They may be the same supernatural beings that
carry Yahweh's chariot-throne in the Book of Ezekiel chapters 1 and 10. Later
tradition gave the names seraphim and cherubim to two classes of angels.
Cherubim guarded the entrance to Eden after Adam and Eve were exiled (Gen 3:24), and two statues of cherubim adorned the lid of the Mercy-seat of the Ark
of the Covenant (Ex 25:22; 33:7-11). St. John also described seraphim in
Revelation 4:6b-9.
In the past, certain men were privileged to view the heavenly throne room (i.e., Ex 24:9-11; Is 6:1-6; Rev Chapter 4:1-11). At the covenant ratification ceremony, Moses, Aaron, two of Aaron's sons, and the seventy elders of the tribes of Israel viewed the heavenly throne room from below (looking up through the sapphire pavement), and they ate a sacred meal in the Divine Presence. Read that passage and compare that first view with Isaiah's vision, Ezekiel's vision in Ezekiel 1:4-28, and St. John's vision in the Book of Revelation 4:1-11.
3"Holy, holy, holy
is the LORD of hosts [Yahweh Sabaoth], they cried one to the other. All the
earth is filled with His glory."
They shout out a hymn of praise to God and call to each
other, suggesting the song may be antiphonal. The hymn announces God as thrice
holy, which the Fathers of the Church saw as a glimpse into the mystery of the
triune nature of God (Ambrose, Caesarius, Cyril of Alexandria, and Jerome, to
name a few). St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and teacher of St. Augustine (c.
333-397), wrote: "Cherubim and seraphim with unwearied voices praise him and
say, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts.' They say it not once, lest
you should believe that there is but one; not twice, lest you should exclude
the Spirit; they say not holies [in the plural], lest you should imagine that
there is plurality, but they repeat three times and say the same word, that
even in a hymn you may understand the distinction of persons in the Trinity and
the oneness of the Godhead, and while they say this they proclaim God" (On
the Holy Spirit, 3.16.110).
The "Holy, Holy, Holy" hymn the heavenly beings sang at the throne of God in the presence of the heavenly assembly should be familiar to you. It is similar to the hymn of praise we sing in the Liturgy of the Mass. We sing the same hymn because Heaven and earth join in liturgical worship in praise of the Most Holy Trinity in the Mass. St. John heard the same hymn when he was caught up into the heavenly Sanctuary in Revelation 4:8.
4 At the
sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook, and the house was filled with
smoke.
The smoke that filled the heavenly Temple reminds us of
the manifestation of God's Divine Presence in the Glory Cloud (leading the
children of Israel in the Exodus in Ex 13:21-22; at Sinai in the Theophany of Ex 19:16-19 and recalled in Dt 4:11-12; the desert Sanctuary in Ex 40:34-35; and
the Jerusalem Temple in 1 Kng 8:10-12 and Ez 10:4). The whole heavenly Temple probably
shook, but perhaps Isaiah was kneeling at the door, so he was more aware of the
shaking of the doorposts.
5 Then I said:
"Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips living among a people
of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts [Yahweh
Sabaoth]." 6 Then one of the
seraphs flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the
altar. 7 He touched my mouth with
it. "See," he said, "now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is
removed, your sin purged."
Isaiah's response to the vision was similar to St. Peter's
reaction to Jesus in Luke 5:8; both men were overcome by being in the presence
of the holy God and were immediately aware of their sins. God's response to Isaiah's
fear and repentance is to send a seraph to touch his lips with a burning coal
from the heavenly altar. Imagine Isaiah's relief. Crushed by self-despair
brought on by the weight of his sin in God's presence and fearing his immediate
destruction, he has received a complete and unmerited cleansing and is ready
for the next step in his journey. Notice how each event leads to the next:
Isaiah's cleansing experience is remembered by every priest at every celebration of the Mass before the Gospel Reading when he silently prays that God will cleanse his lips that he might be worthy to proclaim God's Word.
8 Then I heard
the voice of the Lord saying: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" "Here
am;" I said, "send me!"
For the first time in the passage, God speaks: "Whom
shall I send? Who will go for us?" The same plural form relating to the
Godhead appears in Geneses 3:22, and both passages foreshadow the mystery of
the Trinity (angels do not send prophets). Isaiah's immediate response was that
he was prepared to go, even before he knew the nature of the mission. God calls
all baptized and confirmed Christians to provide the same willing response. None
of us can know the mission until we first say "yes" to God. Are you willing to
respond with the same faith and trust as Isaiah? Are you willing to say "Yes"
to God's call to fulfill the command of the Resurrected Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20a
when He told His disciples, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."
Responsorial Psalm 138:1-5, 7c-8 ~ Singing God's Praise
The response is: "In the sight of the angels, I will sing your praises, Lord."
1 I will give thanks
to you, O LORD, with all my heart, for you have heard the words of my mouth; in
the presence of the angels I will sing your praise; 2a I will worship at your holy Temple and give
thanks to your name.
Response:
2b Because of your
kindness and your truth; for you have made great above all things your name and
your promise. 3 When I called, you
answered me; you built up strength within me.
Response:
4 All the kings of
the earth shall give thanks to you, O LORD, when they hear the words of your
mouth; 5 and they shall sing of the
ways of the LORD: "Great is the glory of the LORD."
Response:
7c Your right hand
saves me. 8 The LORD will complete
what he has done for me; your kindness, O LORD, endures forever; forsake not
the work of your hands.
Response:
In this psalm, attributed to the great King David, God called the psalmist to be His anointed agent when he was still a child. God sent David to deliver Israel from her enemies and through him to set in motion God's divine plan for the coming of David's descendant, the Redeemer-Messiah.
The psalmist begins his hymn of praise with an expression of gratitude for the blessings that come from his close relationship with the Lord. He vows to sing God's praises in the Temple liturgy and to give thanks (verses 1-2a). He will sing God's praises because of His kindness to him, the truth of His word, and God's faithfulness to His promises, which could be a reference to the covenant God made with David in 2 Samuel 7:16 that his throne will endure forever (verse 2b). Whenever he called upon God for His help, he testifies that God answered His servant's prayer and gave His protection (verse 3).
In verses 4-5, the psalmist declares that all the kings of the earth will one day give thanks and praise to the Lord God, acknowledging His greatness. This event, says the psalmist, will come about when the Gentiles hear the words of God preached to them, and they respond by singing glory to God. The psalmist ends with another profession of his faith and trust in God that He will complete the work done through His servant and his confidence that God's kindness "endures forever."
If the psalmist is indeed David, he speaks prophetically of the promise of universal salvation when the Gentile kings and their peoples come to acknowledge the greatness of Israel's God. This event took place after the resurrection of David's heir, Jesus of Nazareth, who sent out His disciples to convert the Gentile nations. They responded with faith and repentance, receiving the baptism of salvation and entering the Kingdom of Christ's Church!
The Second Reading 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 ~ Paul's Mission
to Share the Gospel
1 I am reminding
you, brothers and sisters, of the Gospel I preached to you, which you indeed
received and in which you also stand. 2 Through
it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain. 3 For
I handed on to you as of first importance which I also received: that Christ
died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; 4 that he was buried; that he was raised on the
third day in accordance with the Scriptures; 5 that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five
hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living though some have fallen
asleep. 7 After that he appeared to
James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last
of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to
be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and
his grace to me has not been ineffective. Indeed, I have toiled harder than all
of them; not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Therefore, whether it be I or they, so we
preach and so you believed.
In this last part of his letter to the Christians at Corinth, St. Paul reminds them that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the core doctrines of Christian faith (verses 1-3). It is the supreme argument in favor of the divine nature of Jesus and His God-ordained mission (proclaimed by Jesus, for example, in Mt 16:21-28; 17:25-27; 20:17-19). Finally, in verses 3-8, Paul tells the faith community of Corinth that his message is the same as what he received from Jesus Christ and which he has passed on to them:
In stating that these events are "in accordance with the Scriptures," Paul is probably referring to Old Testament passages that, after the events of Jesus's Resurrection, were seen to foreshadow the Resurrection event (e.g., see Jonah Chapters 1-2 which Jesus referred to and applied to Himself in Mt 12:39-40; Hos 6:1-2 and Ps 16:9-10 among others). Then, in verses 5-7, Paul lists those to whom the resurrected Christ appeared:
In verses 9-11, Paul refers to his dramatic encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus Road and his call to discipleship, a call he says he didn't deserve because he was a persecutor of Christians for the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2). He testifies that it was the grace of God that forgave him for his past sins and made him fit to fulfill his mission as Christ's chosen instrument to call the Gentiles to salvation. The same grace prepared Isaiah and Peter for their missions and equips each of us to accept our call to discipleship to continue in their footsteps, sharing the Gospel of salvation with our generation. We can have confidence that God will not call us without equipping us for success!
The Gospel of Luke 5:1-11 ~ Jesus Calls Simon-Peter to
Discipleship
1 While the crowd
was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by
the Lake of Gennesaret. 2 He saw
two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing
their nets. 3 Getting into one of
the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance
from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 After he had finished speaking, he said to
Simon, "Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch." 5 Simon said in reply, "Master, we have worked
hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command, I will lower the
nets." 6 When they had done this
they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other
boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that they were in
danger of sinking. 8 When Simon
Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, "Depart from me, Lord,
for I am a sinful man." 9 For
astonishment at the catch of fish, they had made seized him and all those with
him, 10 and likewise James and
John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, "Do
not be afraid; from now on, you will be catching men." 11 When they brought their boats to the shore,
they left everything and followed him.
The Sea of Galilee had several names, including Lake Gennesaret and the Roman name of the Sea of Tiberias (only used in St. John's Gospel). It was the practice of Galilean fishermen to fish at night and return to the shore at sunrise to unload the catch and mend their nets. Jesus asked Simon to use his boat as a platform from which to address the large crowd. Mark 1:16-20 provides the information that Simon and his brother Andrew were in the fishing business and were partners with Zebedee and his sons James and John (Mt 4:18-22; Mk 1:16-20).
This event was not the first time the Galilean fishermen had met Jesus. They first met Jesus when they attended the ministry of ritual baptism for repentance by John the Baptist in Perea on the east side of the Jordan River (see Jn 1:35-51).
The boat's vantage point provided a natural stage from where Jesus could give His address to a large crowd. Notice that, as was the custom, that Jesus sat down to teach. After His teaching, knowing that the men had caught no fish the night before, Jesus told them to take the boat out again into the deep water and lower their nets. What happened next astonished the men. They caught so many fish that they had to call the other boat to help. The fishermen did not realize it, but the miracle that day would prefigure their mission as Apostles when they went, at Jesus's command, out into the "deep waters" of humanity to gather souls into the net of the universal Church.
Simon recognized they had witnessed a miracle, and Jesus was indeed the Messiah. Coming face to face with God's Anointed, Simon-Peter was suddenly aware of his sins. Notice that Simon-Peter's epiphany and commissioning by Jesus is similar to Isaiah's experience of God and his commissioning in Isaiah 6:1-10 in the First Reading. Simon-Peter also refers to Jesus as "Lord" (see Is 6:8 and compare to Lk 5:8). With the evidence of the miraculous catch of fish, Simon recognizes the vast difference between his human condition as a sinner and Jesus's righteousness as the Holy One of God. It is the same reaction each of us should have when facing Christ's representative, the priest, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
9 For astonishment
at the catch of fish, they had made seized him and all those with him, 10 and likewise James and John, the sons of
Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid;
from now on, you will be catching men." 11
When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and
followed him.
Jesus's words "from now on" (also see Lk 1:48; 2:52; 22:18;
Acts 18:6) emphasize the end of Simon's old life and the beginning of his new
life as Simon-Peter, Simon "the Rock" (Jn 1:42; Mt 16:18). In his commissioning
to discipleship, Jesus told Simon he would eclipse the miraculous catch of the
fish by "catching" the lives of men and women for Christ's Kingdom. He would
replace the night of unproductive human work with fruitful work proclaiming the
word under Jesus's authority.
"Fishers of men" is a prophetic symbol for proclaiming the Gospel in God's economy of salvation. Simon-Peter's brother, Andrew (unnamed in this episode but see the same event in Mt 4:18) and their partners James and John Zebedee will now become partners in proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the beginning of Jesus's community of believers. The fishermen made the same choice Jesus asks each of us to make: to be willing to leave everything in our earthly lives behind and to follow Him.
Jesus calls us to the same mission to go out into humanity's "deep waters" to gather souls for His Kingdom of Heaven. It is why St. John Paul II chose the phrase "Go forth into the deep waters" as the motto for the new millennium of the Church in the 21st century. Are you prepared to trust Jesus and "go forth," like Jesus's first Apostles and disciples, beyond the safety of the "shore" of your community and out into the "deep waters" of humanity for the sake of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ?
Catechism References (*indicates Scripure is quoted or
paraphrased in the citation):
Isaiah 6:1 (CCC 1137);
6:2-3 (CCC 1138*);
6:3 (CCC 2809*);
6:5 (CCC 208, 2584*);
6:6 (CCC 332*);
6:8 (CCC 2584*)
Psalm 138 (CCC 304*); 138:2 (CCC 214)
1 Corinthians 15:3-5 (CCC 186*); 15:3-4 (CCC 639, 652*); 15:3 (CCC 519, 601, 619, 624); 15:4-8 (CCC 642*); 15:4 (CCC 627); 15:5 (CCC 552*, 641*); 15:7-8 (CCC 857*); 15:8 (CCC 659); 15:9 (CCC 752*)
All are called to follow Christ (CCC 520*, 618*, 923, 1618*, 1642*, 2053*)
Awe in God's presence versus presumption (CCC 2144, 2732*)
The Apostles as witnesses of the Resurrection (CCC 631, 632*, 633*, 634*, 635*, 636*, 637, 638*, 639*, 640*, 641*, 642*, 643*, 644*)
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