The three readings in our liturgy today focus on three different people who come to believe. But before they come to faith, they all respond with fear, with hesitation, or with a deep sense of their own unworthiness. Yet they become convinced of the reality of the presence of God, and it’s a presence to which they have to respond.
Isaiah encountered the holiness of God in the liturgy. He was given a vision of God enthroned above, surrounded by the heavenly court who cried out. He was called from the liturgy to preach the message of a holy God to an unjust society.
Paul was called by the Christ whom he had persecuted in the Church. This learned, zealous Pharisee came to acknowledge as Messiah and Son of God the crucified Jesus whom he had despised. He was aware of the failings of his past; but this did not deter him, for he was convinced that he had been called by the powerful presence of the risen Christ to be His apostle to the Gentiles.
Simon Peter was neither prophet nor learned scholar but a rough fisherman whom God called when Jesus found him with his brothers at work among his boats and nets. He had the concrete evidence of his eyes and hands, that after a security of what he knew from his everyday experience and putting out into the deep. The abundant catch of fish which almost burst the disciples’ nets was for Peter the sign of a divine presence and he was afraid: “Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.†Peter, his fears allayed, is convinced by his experience of the divine presence in Jesus and leaves everything and follows the one who calls.
“Let us not grow weary of doing good; if we do not relax our efforts, in due time we shall reap our harvest. While we have the opportunity, let us do good to all men – but especially those of the household of the faith.†(Galatians 6:9-10)