Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Eating Fire

[readings]

When I was in seminary, the floor I lived on had a big conference room that we used for meetings and even sometimes for smaller classes.

On one of the walls of that room there was a painting of what we heard about in today's first reading: Isaiah writing down his vision of God in the temple. As we heard, the Lord is there surrounded by angels crying out, "Holy holy holy!"

But Isaiah is afraid. He recognizes that he is a sinful, weak man in the presence of the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God. He says, "Woe is me, I am doomed!" For a mere human being to see God meant that they would die. It was too much.

Then we come to what that painting depicted. An angel takes a burning ember from the altar, where a fire burned before the presence of God, and touches it to Isaiah's lips - he says to the prophet, "your wickedness is removed, your sin purged."

In that painting it looks very much like Isaiah is receiving communion - but the host is on fire.

That image can teach us something.

When Isaiah finds himself in God's presence, he is fearful. He knows that he is not worthy. Simon, who would eventually be known as Peter, experiences something similar when he encounters Jesus.

He had been fishing all night with James and John, and caught nothing. Then, when he follows Jesus' command, his nets are filled with more fish than they can carry. Peter falls to his knees and says, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."

Both Peter and Isaiah know an important truth - in the face of God, we are nothing. How can this perfect God have anything to do with us?

Jesus gives us the answer when he says to Peter, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." God's solution to the great gap that exists between us and him is to gather us into a family - that family is the Church, which Jesus starts with Peter and the rest who gathered around him when he called.

He is still calling us to that family today; and he does it especially in the Mass. 

When we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving fire. We are being given the gift of God himself. Rather than trying to work our way to being worthy of God, He makes us worthy. He pours Himself into us so that, step by step, as we work to grow in holiness, we become more and more like him.

That says a lot about how we receive the Eucharist. We say that it is a gift - so it should be received as a gift. We don't expect gifts or presume to receive them - we accept them humbly and graciously.

If that gift is God Himself, then we need to be prepared to receive Him.

That preparation doesn't start when we walk in the door of the church.

It starts when we take seriously the idea of receiving the Eucharist in the state of grace - that means going to confession on a regular basis and, if it has been too long, not receiving communion that day. That is ok to do.

It means really observing the Eucharistic fast - not eating for an hour before receiving communion. It's not just a rule but a way of teaching ourselves that the food we eat here is far different from anything else.

It means participating in the Mass and realizing that we are here for God. This isn't a social club or get-together. Like Isaiah and Peter, we are coming into the presence of the living God - and just like them, we are sinful, we are unworthy. It is a privilege to be here for Mass, one that none of us deserve.

But Jesus says to us, "Do not be afraid."

He calls us to follow him, to live by his commandments and his Spirit every day of our lives. And he makes us clean.