HOMILY FOR FIFTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (C)

Fr Billy Swan

A wise spiritual director once said that everyone should carry with them two pieces of paper, one in either pocket. On one piece of paper is written words from Psalm 8 where it says: ‘For who is man that you keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him. Yet, you have made him little less than a god. With honour and glory you have crowned him’. On the other piece of paper is written the words: ‘Remember man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return’. Here at once are two truths of our existence that we must keep in sight: that on one hand we limited, unworthy and mortal and on the other hand that we have been created by God for a wonderful purpose and calling and are destined to be with him forever.

In the first reading and the Gospel today, we find two people who are reminded of these two truths about themselves. In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah feels the weight of his own unworthiness in the presence of God’s holiness and cries out: ‘What a wretched state I am in!’ But then, God does not allow him to be overcome by his own inadequacy and sends him an angel to purify his heart and lips before being sent by God to be a great prophet to the nations.

We see the same with Peter in the Gospel. Once Peter is confronted with the miraculous catch of fish, he falls to his knees and in a moment of being almost blinded b the goodness of God before him and cries out to Jesus: ‘Lord, leave me for I am a sinful man’. But like Isaiah, Jesus does not allow Peter to be crushed by his sense of unworthiness. He helps Peter to his feet and says to him: ‘Do not be afraid; from now on it is people you will catch’. In the case of both Isaiah and Peter, the initial feeling of unworthiness gives way to a trustful acceptance of God’s plan for their lives.

Here is an important message for us too. If we lose one of the pieces of paper in our pocket then we risk one of two extremes: we might think that we are so unworthy and constantly fail to live up to our own expectations and those that God has for us, that we live in a constant state of insecurity and low self-esteem. The other danger is that we lose sight of our fallen nature, our need for salvation, our need for God: that I become my own god and master of my own destiny, placing myself at the centre of my world.

To help us find the right balance we turn to the saints and to one in particular whose teachings on this point are strikingly beautiful. For St Bernard of Clairvaux, it is only when we have been utterly humbled by weakness that we are most likely to experience the grace of God’s mercy. To those who struggle with a constant sense of unworthiness, Bernard writes: ‘it is mercy not misery that makes a person happy, but mercy’s natural home is man’s misery’ (On Conversion: a sermon to clerics’ in Bernard of Clairvaux: Sermons on Conversion, VII, 12, pp. 45-46). For Bernard, feeling his own unworthiness before God was painful but necessary in order to discover the heights and the depths of God’s love for him. And so, he prayed that he might always see himself in the light of God’s grace and truth. He writes: ‘I need both of these. I need truth that I may not be able to hide from him and grace that I may not want to hide’ (Sermon 74:8, pp.92-93).

Today, let us make this prayer our own. Like Peter, Isaiah and Bernard, when we experience the closeness of God, we too feel a sharp sense of our own unworthiness. But as we have seen, this is no bad thing for it is the first step to renewal and acceptance of God’s mercy and love. I know this to be true from my own experience. It often strikes me in the sacristy before coming out for Mass: ‘My God! Who am I to be here preaching to you? Who am I to put on these vestments, to take that host and chalice in my hands and to say in His name ‘This is my body!..This is my blood’. Yet for me and for all of us, it is a moment to realize that God himself always bridges that gap between us in our unworthiness and his presence and holiness: the gap between who we are and who he calls us to be.

So let us heed the words of Jesus addressed to Peter that are also addressed to us: ‘Do not be afraid!’. In the light of God’s grace may we see ourselves as we truly are: on one hand broken, limited and unworthy sinners and on the other hand children of God for whom Christ lived and died, people with a divine calling and an eternal destiny. Hold on to those two pieces of paper and keep them in either pocket. Don’t lose them!