An awesome God calls us to make a difference
Did you ever have an experience that, try as you might, you simply cannot explain? Let me share a couple of examples…
When I was in college, we had a show by a man who called himself the “Amazing Kreskin”. He was like a magician, but unique. And he was good enough to appear on several TV programs, including The Night Show.
At one point, Kreskin took out a pencil and asked three members of the audience if he could borrow their rings: a wedding ring, a class ring, an engagement ring. He took the three rings and threaded them on the pencil. Then, he started slowly twirling the pencil around and, before we knew it, the three rings were linked together in a chain. The people who donated the use of the rings then examined the chain and swore that these were their rings, that they were not in cahoots with the performer, and that they were not being paid off to be part of the show. At the end of the performance, Kreskin was taken out of the auditorium, “under guard” with a group of students who could take him anywhere they wanted. Another group of students were asked to hide the payment for his performance anywhere they wanted. Then, when Kreskin returned to the auditorium, if he could not find the check in three minutes, he would refuse to be paid for his performance. Those hiding the check were actually able to tear up some floor boards, where they hid the check. Kreskin came back in, had his “guards” testify that he was in their company all along, and then proceeded to find the check in a minute and a half. I’m sure that there are a lot of theories as to how he did it, but the rings turned into a chain, when I think about it, still blows my mind.
Another example… Many years ago, I was at a large parish in Springfield, and I became quite friendly with our head custodian, whose responsibility it was to take care of our church, massive school, rectory, grounds and three parking lots. One night he was sound asleep and at about one or two o’clock in the morning, his doorbell rang, rather insistently. A close friend of Larry’s had walked up onto the porch and wanted to say hello. When Larry answered his door and saw his friend, he was dumbfounded. You see, for the forty years or more that he had known the man, he had been in a wheelchair, paralyzed and unable to walk. Now here he was, walking around, tears running down his face, practically dancing for joy. How could this happen?
Larry’s friend had been to a healing service in Worcester with a priest named Fr. Ralph DiOrio. He went to the service in a wheelchair, and walked out of the auditorium on his own two feet. By the way, I knew Fr. DiOrio when I was a student at Holy Cross College. I taught religious education at the parish where he was stationed. He had not yet started the healing ministry. At that time he was doing marriage counseling. I remember him as one of the meekest and shyest persons I had ever met. I never would have imagined that he would become famous.
At any rate, I’ve had these kind of experiences that defy explanation. Now, Kreskin was known as “mentalist”—who knows? He may have mass hypnotized the entire audience. But Fr. DiOrio was a person of prayer, who was performing healings in the name of Jesus Christ.
These are the kind of experiences described in today’s readings. It’s the experience of Isaiah in our first reading, who was taken up into heaven, into the awesome presence of God. And how does he react? “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; het my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Isaiah knew he was in the presence of the holy, and it made him realize his littleness and sinfulness.
The same thing happens to Peter. He’s the expert; all his life he’s been a fisherman. He and his crew had been out fishing all night long and had caught nothing. And here comes Jesus, a carpenter (assuming he had learned that trade from Joseph)—a carpenter telling the expert fisherman to try again, a carpenter without any experience telling the fisherman to go back out at the wrong time of day. And when he does, there’s such an unexplainable catch of fish that the boat almost sinks and Peter has to call for a second boat. Peter, like Isaiah, is over-awed; he knows that he is in the presence of the holy, and he feels his littleness, saying, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” But Jesus chooses Peter to be his disciple, just as God had chosen Isaiah to be his messenger. That’s how God works. He chooses those who know their weakness, and he makes them strong in faith so that they can speak the truth, bear witness to their experience, and even perform healings in the name of God.
So, what about us? Have we had glimpses of that which is beyond us? Have we heard the whisperings of God? Have we ever felt that we were in the presence of the holy? It comes through the experience of awe. When I look up at the night sky, when I remember that there are 400 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, that’s when I feel small, weak, and sinful before the magnificence of the work of almighty God. That’s what gives me an unshakeable faith, even in the midst of the pain of all we are going through, even in the midst of Covid, even in the midst of political craziness, even in the midst of incredible poverty and suffering. There is a God calling us, just as he called Isaiah and Peter, calling us to do some fishing on God’s behalf, bringing encouragement and hope to those who have been at it all night and seem to have caught nothing. Quite simply, we’re here for each other, reminding one another that Jesus is in the boat with us, inspiring us to reach out and make a difference in his name. We have work to do.