Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Every Catholic will recognize today’s first reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah as the source of our Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus. This sacred moment between the Offertory and the Eucharistic prayer is marked by angelic awe. Most Christians would recognize the same Holy-Holy-Holy for the opening words of the hymn by Reginald Heber (1783-1826).

This passage – Isaiah 6:1-8 – wants intense and long reflection. First, we should recognize it as the call of Isaiah to prophecy and the key to his writing. Most of the writing prophets in the Bible – both Old and New Testaments – tell us something about the circumstances surrounding their call to prophecy. Jeremiah was called before he was born. Hosea was coping with his unfaithful wife. Ezekiel had a staggering vision by the river Chebar. Mary was visited by an angel; Jesus was baptized; Peter was fishing; Paul was on the road to Damascus.

The event, its setting, the vision and words will shape the prophet’s message profoundly. Hosea understood Israel as God’s wife. Jeremiah experienced his isolated individuality as no one had before. Paul realized that in persecuting Christians he was attacking the very body of Christ.

Isaiah saw God as the Lord of lords and King of kings. If this was not exactly a new idea, Isaiah saw it more clearly, with knee-staggering amazement. He was so astonished and terrified he thought he would die. God’s overwhelming magnificence shines through every word of Isaiah.
The Book, in its turn, had a profound impact on Jesus and the New Testament, especially the Gospels. And they powerfully shaped Saint Francis’ encounter with God. It was no accident that a seraphic angel appeared to the Poor Man when he received the stigmata. Isaiah had seen the same seraphic angels hovering around God’s throne. That’s why Franciscans are called the Seraphic Order.

Secondly, we should notice Isaiah had this vision in the temple of Jerusalem during a Jewish ceremony. It was a liturgical event. People say they can meet God on the golf course or deep in the woods. That’s all fine, but I don’t know which God they’re meeting.

We meet our God face to face during the liturgical celebration of the Mass. A Catholic expects to find God in the Eucharist. We can be enriched and our faith nurtured by pictures and poems, songs and stories, icons and crucifixes, but our most intensely personal encounter with God is at Mass.

This meeting occurs on a very deep level, in a place usually inaccessible to thoughts and feelings. We don’t feel the majesty of God with our senses so much as we know by a wordless faith we belong here. Our senses hear words, smell candles, notice colors, and taste the elements of bread and wine -- but little by little something more important happens. We notice changes in our behavior. We’re more patient, more devout, more generous, and more willing to play our part as citizens of the earth. Because the changes are subtle we cannot boast of them; we did not acquire these virtues by force. They were given to us over weeks, months and years. They formed in us like habits, as the liturgy is a habit.

When I hear this passage from Isaiah 6 I think of our retreat chapel in Prior Lake, Minnesota. The room is octagonal, and larger than it seems. Sixty chairs sit before a massive granite altar, beneath the gaze of a life-sized, wooden crucifix. Five skylight windows overhead and twelve windows at ground level bring every mood of outdoor light into the chapel. It is spacious and comfortable, simple and majestic.

I don’t know but I suppose the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, of the Jerusalem temple might have been no larger than this chapel. Where Isaiah saw God seated on his throne, surrounded by angels singing Holy-Holy-Holy, I see Jesus crucified.
In fact every Catholic Church should have a crucifix front and center over the altar. 

At this late date it's hard to say for certain, but archaelogists think the cross was a kind of chair. We can easily imagine this instrument of torture as a throne. And faith recognizes Jesus -- crowned with thorns, with two men (courtiers?) on his right and left, as the mob chants “Hail, King of the Jews" -- as our king and messiah. 

In this chapel, the corpus of the cross does not so much hang as it is suspended. The weight of his body is not pulling him toward earth. Rather, it seems to float lightly and willingly in the air, a gift of earth to God, and of God to earth and all its inhabitants.

I see in this chapel and that crucifix Isaiah’s vision, and when a presider burns incense and the congregation sings Holy-Holy-Holy, I can almost feel the earth and walls tremble.

Finally, I hear Isaiah sing out, “Here I am. Send me!” This word, in Hebrew hineni, is the essence of reverence. It means, “I am ready, open, available, eager, obedient, and alert. Whatever you want; here I am.” When God says, “I AM” the devout person replies, “HERE I AM.”  

It is a word of prayer and an attitude for life. “Here I am” is present to God, others, self and the earth. It is attentive to the time and the moment. (Ecclesiastes 3:1) Hineni recognizes the Lord of all things in all things and trembles with gladness.