"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!"
Every encounter with the Lord is unique, but also similar to all others. Sometimes there are spiritual fireworks as for Isaiah. Other times thing proceed more simply. But in a genuine encounter there is usually a sense of God's greatness and our smallness. This is what Saint Catherine of Siena understood when she heard Jesus tell her "I am He who is; and you are she who is not". He is wholly other, someone completely out of our range, with whom we could never complete. And yet he is mysteriously always present, closer to us than we realize. Yet far from being immediately comforting, the closeness of the Holy One tends first to be upsetting and unsettling, causing us to see ourselves in his light, as we truly are. How and why should the imperfect even exist in the face of the perfect? Yet that we exist and continue to exist is already a sign of his mercy even before he explicitly offers that mercy to us.
He touched my mouth with it, and said,
"See, now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed, your sin purged."
It is precisely by his presence that God purifies us and makes us able to endure his presence. He is a consuming fire (see Hebrews 12:29) who purges us of pride, allowing us in the be small in the presence of the Great One without struggling or resisting. Everyone who encounters God must undergo purification, though it does not look at same for everyone. For Isaiah there was the ember from the altar and for Paul there were the three days of his blindness and way they made him dependent on others. For Peter, purification began when he said "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man". But since the Lord's presence was a prerequisite to healing, Jesus, the holy one, told Peter, in effect, that he wasn't going. anywhere, that Peter need not be afraid, that he should in fact accompany Jesus on his mission. Left on their own Isaiah, Paul, and Peter might have run from the encounter. From their limited vantage point they could not infer or assume any comfort at first. But in each encounter, God reached out to them from his side with his mercy, allowing them to come into his presence without fear, making them bold.
"Here I am," I said; "send me!"
These are archetypal stories of conversion. How far along are we in the process? Have we encountered the holiness, otherness, and omnipresence of God? Have we recognized, in his light, our own utter inadequacy? Have we held on until his mercy is revealed and we learn to live in his presence with increasing freedom? Has God's compassion for us made us bold to undertake whatever mission he has for us? Perhaps our own conversion is stuck at the stage of having "worked hard all night and have caught nothing". Perhaps we have become so frustrated by attempting to make the catch of fish ourselves that we have all but given up. And perhaps this has led to such sorrow that to even lower the net again would be to potentially stir up past trauma. Even so, we can know that God has not abandoned us. Jesus still desires to get in our boat and unsettle our lives, just as he did for Peter. Following him is the only way that leads beyond futility and into fullness. We might first think him rude by the way he simply interjects himself into what we imagine to be our business. But the ways in which our own attempts to take care of such business tend to fail us often creates the cracks through which grace can enter.
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
One way to give God a broader road and deeper access to our hearts is by dwelling in his Scriptures. Then, when he calls us to our vocation and our destiny we can recognize the prophetic predictions that precede it. The fact that everything we receive is preceded by a promise is meant to increase our confidence and our hope.
Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks (see Jeremiah 16:16).
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