5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
First Reading: Isa 6:1-2a, 3-8
Second Reading: 1 Cor 15:1-11
Gospel Reading: Lk 5:1-11
In this Sunday’s Readings, Isaiah says, “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips,” yet “my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Peter falls down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
Both realize that they are sinners in the presence of someone who is utterly holy. Neither can bear the contact.
However, an angel brings Isaiah a live coal from the altar and says, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Jesus reassures Peter: “Do not be afraid.”
“Before the final judgment, there is a purifying fire,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Those in Purgatory are sure of heaven, for they have died in friendship with God, but they cannot yet bear “the beatific vision”: God “as he is,” “face to face.”
God’s mercy is unlimited. Only if we reject it, refusing to repent even at the end of our lives, will we remain incapable of seeing God.
How can mere humans ever see God face to face?
The Catechism explains. “Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery” and gives us the “capacity” to see him.
That is exactly what God plans for us. “At the heart of the divine act of creation is the divine desire to make room for created persons in the communion of the uncreated Persons of the Blessed Trinity through adoptive participation in Christ,” says the International Theological Commission.
How does God make “room” for us in the Holy Trinity?
The answer is that Jesus Christ, God the Son made man, atoned for our sins by his death and resurrection (as we hear in the Second Reading). Now, at our baptism, God “adopts” us as Christ’s brothers and sisters. From then on, we “participate in Christ” as members of his Mystical Body, alive with his divine life.
On earth, St. Paul says, that life remains “hidden with Christ in God,” but in heaven, St. John says, we will be “like him” and therefore able to “see him as he is.”
Heaven will be the ultimate fulfilment of our deepest longings, the Catechism says: the state of supreme, definitive happiness for which God made us. At present, we cannot imagine it, any more than we can see God, for “eye has not seen, ear has not heard,” nor has it so much as dawned on us “what God has prepared for those who love him.”
In heaven we will live “in Christ.” As members of his Mystical Body, we will retain—or rather find—our unique identities, for to each person the Holy Spirit will give “a white stone, upon which is inscribed a new name,” to be known only by that person, says the Book of Revelation.
This name will express our character, our nature, our meaning in the eyes of God, explained clergyman George MacDonald. The white stone will seal our success.
Each of us will have our own white stone, our own name. Each of us, therefore, will have a unique relationship with God, but we will enjoy a perfect “communion of life and love” with everyone else.
Even on earth, which God has filled with his glory for our enjoyment, we have to express that enjoyment to someone else to make it complete.
In heaven, as we enjoy God himself “as he is,” we will be able to communicate what we, and only we, see in the Holy Trinity. Accordingly, Isaiah hears those around God’s throne crying to one another how holy, how wonderful, how glorious, God is.
In heaven, therefore, we shall each experience the maximum happiness possible to us, for we shall each enjoy God as fully as we can and, at every moment, consummate our enjoyment by giving it perfect expression.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English. The whole course is available in written form and Sessions 1-18 in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Session 19, “The Mass: Sacrament and Sacrifice,” will be available in YouTube form starting Feb. 6.