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We Owe God both Awe and Love

Homily
Sunday, February 4, 2007, 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Joseph Parish, Detroit

            Did you ever wonder what it will be like when you encounter God at the end of all things? When we die, we will not see God face to face at our judgment, but only until we are judged to be worthy of heaven. The saints see God in heaven. Yet some saints encountered him already on earth, such as Peter in today’s Gospel, or Isaiah in today’s first reading. There is a type of encounter with God we can have in this life, and it is different from the encounter with God in eternal life. So today I wish to meditate on the encounter with God in this life, so that we may worthily respond to our encounter with God, and so attain the possession of him forever in the life to come.

            This meditation will concern much of St. Peter, the first of the Apostles; he was not first chronologically, but he was the first in place, in hierarchy, in privilege. At the boat in Capernaum, he encountered Christ.

            Pope Benedict has recently taught much regarding Peter in his Wednesday Audiences. Every Wednesday the Pope, in a sense Peter alive among us today, delivers a public catechesis to whoever thousands usually come, and they are called his “Wednesday Audiences.” Since last spring he has begun a series of catecheses on the Church, starting with the Apostles, especially with Peter. I hope you all have been using the Catholic press, the internet, and whichever other source, to regularly and affectionately follow the Pope’s teachings. Imagine being a Catholic, and completely unaware of what the Pope is preaching to the world? The Pope speaks about Peter during three Wednesday Audiences: Peter the Fisherman, Peter the Apostle, and Peter the Rock.[1]

            Who was Peter before Christ called him? A fisherman. It seems he was married, for one of the pieces in Scripture refer to his “mother-in-law.” Furthermore, ancient tradition and historical studies tell us he was married; and also that, like all the apostles and many centuries of bishops and priests afterwards, he lived as a celibate when Christ had made him a priest, and that for the rest of his life long.[2] What else about Peter? We see he was impetuous, rash in his judgment, uncomplicated in his faith, and fearful of the opinions of others. He trusted Jesus, the carpenter, enough to go out into the deep and fish, when Peter himself the fisherman had already tried and found nothing.

            If Jesus had not called him, we wouldn’t know he even existed. He was just a fisherman. And like all of us, history didn’t say “wow” before his name, as before the names of Caesar Augustus, Cicero, Genghis Kahn, Napoleon or Beethoven. Yet the fame and place history had allotted him was of no consequence to Jesus, because such vain things as the fame of one’s name among men means nothing to the Holy Trinity.

            And so perhaps we can feel sad that we are “nobody” in the eyes of the rest of the world. We are given little attention, little importance. When we die, only a few may remember our names, and that will last a generation, two if we’re lucky, and then oblivion will cover us over. We spend our time contending with sickness, bills, our career, apparently small family affairs. We do not spend our time changing history, becoming famous, and shaping the course of all things in the world. We are the small, the so-to-speak “unimportant.” So St. Paul writes, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (1 Cor 1:25-27)

            Can it be, that, in my many sufferings, God has forgotten about me? Perhaps I’m so unimportant that God is busy with the greater issues of the course of human history? Maybe I don’t even matter? I spend all my life working and struggling, and not many great things come of it, things which might call God’s attention to myself. Has God forgotten me? And with such questions, cynicism knocks on the door of our soul.

            Yet can a mother forget the child of her womb? Even if she could, God would not forget you. God, and no one but God created you, and the Father adopted you in baptism, and the Spirit sealed you in confirmation, and the Son is about to nourish your body and soul with the Sacrament of his very self. For God does not see as men see, and you are about to have an encounter with Christ, just like Peter did.

            The response we owe God in this encounter should be with as much awe for his majesty, as love for his goodness towards us. There is one paragraph[3] in the Catechism of the Catholic Church which cites both the passage we read today from Isaiah and the Gospel we read today from Luke about Peter’s encounter with God. This passage will teach us how we are to respond to God when we encounter him, and as I read this paragraph, let us all think of how to apply this to ourselves today when we pray to God, and especially when we receive him in Eucharistic communion.

Faced with God's fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own insignificance. Before the burning bush, Moses takes off his sandals and veils his face in the presence of God's holiness.[4] Before the glory of the thrice-holy God, Isaiah cries out: “Woe is me! I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips.”[5] Before the divine signs wrought by Jesus, Peter exclaims: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”[6] But because God is holy, he can forgive the man who realizes that he is a sinner before him: “I will not execute my fierce anger . . . for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst.”[7] The apostle John says likewise: “We shall . . . reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”[8]

            This is the same God who revealed himself to the prophets and Apostles, who spoke with us and still does through his real Word in the Scriptures and in his Eternal Son Jesus, who poured four the Holy Spirit upon us. This God, holy, holy, and again holy died on the cross and perpetuated his sacrifice in the Eucharist. This God is the one you meet today at Mass.

            In summary: God is holy and glorious, yet he has not forgotten us. He bows down, as a father does to his own child, and wishes to save us from our sins. When we meet this God, we should have awe for his majesty, fear for our sins, yet confidence for his goodness and joy in his look upon us. May these be our dispositions in Mass today and forever. Amen.