5th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2010

A Cistercian monk once observed that there are three stages in our Christian journey: sin, conversion and the pursuit of perfection. He noted that these three stages are inextricably bound up together. We can not be one or the other. We are continually in all three stages at once. And God’s grace abounds all three stages. While we are constantly sinners, we are constantly in a state of continuing conversion. Therefore, we are continually being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

This Sunday’s readings give us biblical examples of such men in various stages of their journey. We see Isaiah acknowledging his sinfulness before our thrice holy God and mercifully receiving divine forgiveness, when the purifying ember of the Almighty’s altar touched his lips, removing his wickedness and purging his sins. With this decisive conversion, the Lord called Isaiah to be His prophet: “Who shall I send? Who will go for us?” Isaiah’s response: “Here I am, send me.” His obedience to the Lord’s call brought him to continue on with his spiritual journey.

We also see Simon, after witnessing the Lord’s powerful miracle, falling at the feet of Jesus and acknowledging his sinfulness. With Peter’s decisive conversion, the Lord called him to be a fisher of men. And with his obedience to the Lord’s call, Peter began the next stages of his journey, never quite leaving behind his sins, and for good reason: he needed God’s grace to continue his journey of continual conversion and sanctification.

We see Paul, many years after his conversion on the road to Damascus, still acknowledging his sinfulness and unworthiness: “Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Though richly gifted with wisdom from his his extensive missionary labors, Paul still acknowledged his utter dependence on the grace of God: "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.”

Because of Paul’s complete trust and reliance on the grace of God, he was blessed to become the apostle who spread the good news of salvation to the Gentile world. “Therefore, whether it be I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”