Fr. Bulletin Message For The Eight Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year C

I have a vivid recollection of my mother telling me in my early teenage years that a tree is known by its fruits. At the time, I was trying to understand why I was not allowed to hang out with a certain boy in my hometown. Rather than give me a straight answer, my mother spoke using a local aphorism, “If a goat that doesn't eat yam starts hanging out with another goat that eats yam, the goat that doesn’t eat yam will learn to eat yam.” Her words really stimulated my thought, and when I understood the meaning of what she said, I went back to her and asked, “Mama, but how do you know that he is a bad boy?” My mother replied, “A tree is known by its fruits.” Some years after, I realized my mother was right. That boy, who is now a grown man wasn’t able to graduate from the university due to his waywardness; he had fallen into serious trouble with the law a few times and had been jailed as well. His life is still pathetic even to date.

In our today’s Gospel passage, which is part of the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus is speaking about hypocrites and false teachers and then says, “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit.” The type of fruit you produce reveals the type of person you are. What precisely tell where you are in your spiritual life and journey is the kind of fruit you bear. And the kind of fruit you produce is ultimately what will determine your eternal destination and reward. What are those fruits? In Galatians 5:22, St. Paul calls them the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and they are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

Sisters and brothers, just as fruit bearing is the whole point of agriculture, so it is with Christianity.

Fr. Marcel 

Homily for the Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

We Are Known By Our Fruits

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Bridget Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 27, 2022

During his earthly life and ministry, Jesus used both lengthy and brief parables to teach and communicate deep spiritual truths because it wasn’t unusual in his culture. Jewish rabbis used stories because they were effective, engaged their listeners and moved them to think or ask questions or to act. Parables bring to mind forgotten or ignored spiritual truths; they confront us with eternal reality, provoke and challenge the lies we have accepted as truths, disturb our comfort zones and if we yield to its message, ultimately refine our lives. 

In our today’s Gospel passage, which is part of the Sermon on the Plain, we find an excellent example of a parable. Jesus is speaking about hypocrites and false teachers and then says, “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit.” I have a vivid recollection of my mother telling me in my early teenage years that a tree is known by its fruits. At the time, I was trying to understand why I was not allowed to hang out with a certain boy in my hometown, who is of the same age with me. Rather than give me a straight answer, my mother spoke using a native aphorism, “When a goat that does not eat yam starts hanging out with another goat that eats yam, the goat that doesn’t eat yam will learn to eat yam.” Her words led me into deep thinking, and when I realized the meaning of what she said, I went back to her and asked, “Mama, but how do you know that he is a bad boy?” My mother replied, “A tree is known by its fruits.” With that I gave up trying to convince her. Years later, I discovered that my mother was right. That boy, who is now a grown man wasn’t able to graduate from the university due to his waywardness, and he has fallen into serious trouble with the law a few times and had been in jail a few times as well. His life is still pathetic even to date. My mother used simple truths from the natural world to teach me something profound about our nature as moral beings.

So, what’s our Lord teaching us today? The type of fruit you produce reveals the type of person you are. What precisely tell where you are in your spiritual life and journey is the kind of fruit you bear. And the kind of fruit you produce is ultimately what will determine your eternal destination and reward. What are those fruits? Jesus speaks of love, love of God and neighbor. He speaks of loving our enemies, doing good to them, blessing them even if they curse us, and also praying for the ones who persecute us. Jesus speaks about providing the essential needs of the poor, the needy and the most vulnerable among us. Jesus speaks about prayer and obeying his commands: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” The Lord speaks about making God the deepest longing of our heart and soul. He speaks about letting God invade our lives and use us as God wills. Jesus speaks about becoming his mouthpiece in the world, and becoming counter-cultural people. And in the Galatians 5:22, St. Paul speaks about what he called the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and they are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

Why is fruit bearing necessary and vitally important to our Lord Jesus? It is because that’s what marks and separates us. The night before he was crucified, that is at the Last Supper, Jesus says, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you love have love for one another” (John 13:35). Bearing the fruit of love is the most firm way we show we Jesus’ disciples. It is easy to fool people with false pretenses, soft talk, and pious appearance. Talk is cheap. Facial expressions can be deceptive. In reality, what eventually demonstrates the kind of person we are is the fruit we produce. Don’t get me wrong. It is good to be eloquent when speaking and defending the faith. It is good to give a smile to someone, even to a stranger. Your smile can brighten and lighten up someone’s mood. However, after all that, the Lord wants us to be disciples who produce good and spiritual fruits. Words or speeches can move the world, and sometimes can change the world, but the fruits we bear can have a lasting and transformative impact in the world. Look at the saints, especially, Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Her fruits of love, compassion, generosity and patience really changed the Church and the world in a very significant way. You can surely tell who the serious Christian is by the fruit they produce.

If the parable of the tree and its fruit has evoked some kind of deeper thought within you, or a desire to reexamine your ways of acting, talking and thinking, then the parable is still making impacts in our life. Remember, just as fruit bearing is the whole point of agriculture, so it is with Christianity. 

Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Logic Of The Son Of God

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 20, 2022

After giving the beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus demands that his followers do something that is quite frankly counter-intuitive, counter-cultural and unconventional: love your enemies. I assume that people’s immediate reaction back then and today is probably the same: how can I love someone who has hurt me? Lots of modern people will find the Lord’s injunction particularly difficult because in modern interpretation, the word “love” is wrapped up with our emotions, passions and feelings towards another person. So, when we say we love someone, we mean we have good feelings towards a person who makes us happy. We delight in their presence and company. In the modern interpretation, there is emphasis on feelings when we talk about love. Love is frequently associated with romantic love, hence the common expression you hear is, ‘I am in love with him or her.’ So, when a modern person reads or hears Jesus’ command to love your enemies, the question that quickly comes to their mind is ‘how can I have romantic love with my enemy?’ It will most likely sound like a ridiculous command. 

But Jesus is not using the word “love” in the way it is being used today. For Jesus, love is more than a feeling. With specific instructions, he teaches that loving your enemies requires three concrete things. First, Jesus says, “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…” Even though they hate you, you don’t return an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Even though they despise you, give you something evil, you return it with good actions. Second, Jesus says, “…bless those who curse you…” If someone curses you, you are to bless them. So, the command here is not only to do good to your enemies, but to speak good to them. You do good with your actions and bless them with your words. Jesus wants the words of our mouth and actions of our life towards our enemies to be good. He does not want pretentiousness, a situation where we say one thing and do another or we do one thing and say another. He wants our overall attitude towards our enemies to be in tandem—to be good. Third, Jesus says, “…pray for those who mistreat (or abuse) you.” The third command is quite crucial because whereas the other two— good actions and blessing require certain amount of interaction and contact, the third command doesn’t require direct contact. So, even if you don’t come into contact with someone who is an enemy, you can always pray for that person. What kind of prayer? The prayer is for God to bless and do good to that person who wishes harm to you. This is what loving your enemies is all about, and as you can see, it is really counter-intuitive. 

Why must I pray for an enemy? Because prayer is an expression of love. What is love? For St. Thomas Aquinas, to love is to consistently will and choose the good of the other. It is to act in such a way as to bring good to another. This notion of love, which is called agape, is not rooted in emotion. It is rooted in the will. It is rooted in the choices that we make. So, to do good, to say good things, and to pray for your enemies are the three concrete actions that Jesus gives us as he unpacks the meaning of love your enemies. Get this clearly, none of these will come naturally to you. It won’t come naturally to you to spend an hour or thirty minutes or even two minutes praying for an enemy. You won’t find it easy praying the rosary for someone who betrayed you, who stole your job, who got you fired or hurt your family. You need to desire it and then ask the Lord to help you. 

Jesus also gives us a list of commands that are parabolically striking: “To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.” Mark this, everything the Lord said here— that is, the image of non-resistance, the image of prodigal generosity, the idea of lending without expecting payback is quite crazy. On a passing glance and at a surface, they seem irrational. But when looked at the depth, it is not irrational but super-rational. It’s like the blessings and the woes. When you look at St. Luke’s version of the beatitudes at the surface, it looks really irrational for the Lord to say, “Blessed are you who are hungry, blessed are you who are poor.” On the surface, the hungry and the poor are the cursed and punished ones. But the paradox is that they are the blessed ones. Why? Because they are not caught up in an addictive pattern of making earthly goods and values their god. The logic of this world says that if you are wealthy, powerful, famous, honored, and surrounded by sensual pleasures, you are indeed blessed. But the logic of the Kingdom of heaven, the logic of the Son of God is that you are blessed and favored if you not addicted to any earthly goods that could become your god. Jesus comes into this world to be struck on the cheek in his passion and not fight back. He comes to this world poor for our sake so that we might be saved. He gives his life to everyone even the ones he knows will reject him. The logic of the Kingdom and the cross is what Jesus is talking about in this Gospel passage. In the beatitudes, he is teaching us the mystery of the cross and in this passage, he is teaching the same mystery in the command to love your enemy. Why? Because to love one’s enemy is calvary.

In addition, Jesus says what is famously called the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” How do we usually interpret the Golden Rule? Don’t do this to me so that I don’t do it to you or I will like you to do this for me so that I in return will do it you you. To an extent, it is part of it but it goes way beyond that when you look at it in context. Jesus is calling us to show to others, especially our enemies the kind of gratuitous love he showed us on the cross. In its context, the Golden Rule is really striking. As you would have others do to you, do so to them. Would you want them to pray for you even when you hurt them? Would you want them to do good to you even when you do evil to them? Would you want them to bless you even if you curse them? If you fall into sin, if you struggle with anger, resentment, substance abuse and you want people to love you even when you act like an enemy to them, do likewise if the table were to turn. I think that is the context Jesus is giving us here. He’s calling for a radical love in the Golden Rule, love that is not irrational but super-rational because it is supernatural. 

The Blessings Are The Curses

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 13, 2022

In our Gospel today, Jesus is speaking to his Jewish disciples in Galilee. His disciples know the Torah. They know the Law of Moses. And what does the Law of Moses say? It said that if the nation of Israel obeys the Lord, they will be blessed in the city, blessed in the field, will have lots of children, lots of crops, lots of cows, peace and prosperity in the land. That means if they obey the Lord, they will immensely be rewarded with earthly and natural blessings. On the other hand, if they disobey the Lord, their city, field, basket, children, crops, cattle, and everything they do will be cursed; and the worst of all the curses is exile, meaning they will be driven out of the Promised Land. If you know the Old Testament well, Moses’ warning eventually happened. After Israel disobeyed God, they were taken into exile. But in Luke’s Beatitudes, Jesus says, Blessed are you who are poor… Blessed are you who are hungry… Blessed are you who weep… Blessed are you when men persecute you, and exclude you and revile you… rejoice on that day for your reward will be great in heaven. As if that is not enough, Jesus flips it and says, But woe to you who are rich… woe to you are are full now… Woe to you who laugh now… Woe to you when they speak well of you… What has Jesus done here? In the New Covenant, in the teaching of Jesus, the blessings are the curses. It means the way you build up your treasures in heaven, not on earth, is precisely through suffering, through poverty, through hunger, through mourning, and ultimately through persecution. By contrast, earthly blessings in the New Covenant are spiritually dangerous. 

What Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel, “Woe to you who are rich” is similar to what he said elsewhere in the Gospel: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24). Why? Because “where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Matt. 6:21). Earthly riches are good, but they have the capacity to drag our hearts down from heaven and then focus us on things that are fleeting. Jesus also says, “Woe to you who are full now…? What’s wrong with getting a good meal? Because you can become so self-satisfied with earthly goods as if you don’t need God. If you become so self-satisfied with food and other material goods to the point you think you don't need God, Jesus says, "Woe to you." People who are hungry are more likely to depend upon God for their sustenance. As for the rich, they can become complacent very quickly. Jesus also says, “Woe to you who are laughing now…” Is he condemning laughter? Not at all! I have a 93 year old friend, Eveline Aleman, who is fond of saying, “laughter is good.” Jesus is talking about people whose laughter is rooted in earthly goods so much so that it distracts them from the injustice around them and also distracts them from the goodness of the kingdom of God. To such people Jesus is saying that although they are laughing now, they are going to weep if they miss out the kingdom of heaven. For those who crave for attention and praise of the world, Jesus warns them that fake prophets were also praised. Fake prophets are hardly persecuted because they tell people what they want to hear. They don’t challenge the people, don’t speak the truth, and don’t speak for God. Through their falsehood, they acquire peace. In all of these, Jesus is talking about the dangers inherent in earthly goods. 

Now, is it harsh and off-putting to say that the blessings are the curses and the curses the blessings? Yes! But then, look at the crucifixion of Jesus. How did the ultimate blessing come into the world? It’s through the cross. Ultimate blessing came through a Man who became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). It came through a Man who is poor, who is weeping, who was stripped of everything, persecuted and crucified. Yet, he is the most Blessed Man of all. I have been using the word “blessed,” but the Greek word that Luke uses is “makarios” which means “happy.” So, in the New Covenant, real happiness is found through detachment from earthly goods, taking up the cross and following Jesus. As you can see, from the very beginning of Luke 6, from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is already preaching the way of the cross, but he is doing it in the form of the Beatitudes. Throughout his ministry, he insists that unless you deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow him, you cannot be his disciples. Finally, detachment is an important spiritual attitude to cultivate. Detachment, “Apatheia” for Greek fathers, “indifferencia” in Ignatius of Loyola means that I am unattached to worldly goods, worldly values that could become a substitute for the true God. When Jesus says the poor are blessed, he means that those who are not addicted to material things are indeed “makarios” that is “happy.” God is the deepest longing of the human heart. Material things, as good as they are, can’t satisfy the hunger in the soul. But if I convince myself that they do, that I need them to be perfectly happy and fulfilled, I will definitely be caught in an additive pattern of striving and working to get more material things like cars, homes, TVs, clothes, honor, fame etc. And if I then find out that those don’t satisfy me, I strive and strive unceasingly. This way of living can only end in disappointment and frustration. Why? Because the happiness I ultimately seek is not in those created goods, but only in God. As St. Augustine echoed centuries ago, God has made us for himself and our heart is restless until it rests in God. So, you are happy, blessed, and delivered if you are not addicted to the material goods of this world. Finally, the Beatitudes are about the attitude of Jesus’ disciples, which are indifference, detachment and apathy to material and worldly goods and values.

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Blessings Are The Curses

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Luke’s account of the Beatitudes is less famous, less popular than that of Matthew’s, but actually punchier, and more straight to the point. More to it, it is accompanied by a list of woes that put people off. After reading Luke’s Beatitudes, you are more likely going to ask the following questions: what’s wrong with being rich? What’s wrong with having a good meal? What’s wrong with laughing? What’s wrong with people saying nice things about you? Literally, there is nothing wrong with these things. Yet, Jesus is pronouncing curse on those who are rich, on those who have full bellies, on those who laugh and on those who have good things said about them. What do we make of these? In the Old Testament, Moses gave a list of blessings and woes as well. Precisely in Deuteronomy 28:1-9, 11, he tells the nation of Israel that if they obey the Lord, they will be blessed in the city, blessed in the field, will have lots of children, lots of crops, lots of cows, peace and prosperity in the land. That means if you obey the Lord, what you get is earthly and natural blessings. On the other hand, if you disobey the Lord, curses will come to you. In Deuteronomy 28:15, Moses warns the children of Israel that if they refuse to obey God’s commandments, their city, field, basket, children, crops, cattle, and everything they do will be cursed; and the worst of all the curses is exile, meaning they will be driven out of the Promised Land. If you know the Old Testament well, Moses’ warning eventually happened. After Israel disobeyed God, they were taken into exile. 

In the New Testament, Jesus is speaking to his Jewish disciples in Galilee. They know the Torah. They know the Law of Moses. And what does the Law of Moses say? It says that if you obey the Lord, you will be blessed. But if you disobey, you will have pestilence, famine, poverty, war, infertility, and exile. But in Luke’s Beatitudes, Jesus says, Blessed are you who are poor… Blessed are you who are hungry… Blessed are you who weep… Blessed are you when men persecute you, and exclude you and revile you… rejoice on that day for your reward will be great in heaven. As if that is not enough, Jesus flips it and says, But woe to you who are rich… woe to you are are full now… Woe to you who laugh now… Woe to you when they speak well of you… What has Jesus done here? In the New Covenant, in the teaching of Jesus, the blessings are the curses. It means the way you build up your treasures in heaven, not on earth, is precisely through suffering, through poverty, through hunger, through mourning, and ultimately through persecution. By contrast, earthly blessings in the New Covenant are spiritually dangerous. 

What Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel, “Woe to you who are rich” is similar to what he said elsewhere in the Gospel: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24). Why? As he also said, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Matt. 6:21). Earthly riches are good, but they have the capacity to drag our hearts down from heaven and then focus us on fleeting things. Jesus also says, “Woe to you who are full now…? What’s wrong with getting a good meal? Because you can become so self-satisfied with earthly goods as if you don’t need God. If you become so self-satisfied with food and other material goods to the point you think you don't need God, Jesus says, "Woe to you." People who are hungry are more likely to depend upon God for their sustenance. As for the rich, they can become complacent very quickly. Jesus also says, “Woe to you who are laughing now…” Is he condemning laughter? Not at all! I have a 93 year old friend, Eveline Aleman, who is fond of saying, “laughter is good.” Jesus is talking about people whose laughter is rooted in earthly goods so much so that it distracts them from the injustice around them and also distracts them from the goodness of the kingdom of God. To such people Jesus is saying that although they are laughing now, they are going to weep if they miss out the kingdom of heaven. For those who crave for attention and praise of the world, Jesus warns them that fake prophets were also praised. Fake prophets are hardly persecuted because they tell people what they want to hear. They don’t challenge the people, don’t speak the truth, and don’t speak for God. Through their falsehood, they acquire peace. In all of these, Jesus is talking about the dangers inherent in earthly goods. 

Now, is it harsh and off-putting to say that the blessings are the curses and the curses the blessings? Yes! But then, look at the crucifixion of Jesus. How did the ultimate blessing come into the world? It’s through the cross. Ultimate blessing came through a Man who became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). It came through a Man who is poor, who is weeping, who was stripped of everything, persecuted and crucified. Yet, he is the most Blessed Man of all. I have been using the word “blessed,” but the Greek word that Luke uses is “makarios” which means “happy.” So, in the New Covenant, real happiness is found through detachment from earthly goods, taking up the cross and following Jesus. As you can see, from the very beginning of Luke 6, from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is already preaching the way of the cross, but he is doing it in the form of the Beatitudes. Throughout his ministry, he insists that unless you deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow him, you cannot be his disciples. Finally, detachment is an important spiritual attitude to cultivate. Detachment, “Apatheia” for Greek fathers, “indifferencia” in Ignatius of Loyola means that I am unattached to worldly goods, worldly values that could become a substitute for the true God. When Jesus says the poor are blessed, he means that those who are not addicted to material things are indeed “makarios” that is “happy.” God is the deepest longing of the human heart. Material things, as good as they are, can’t satisfy the hunger in the soul. But if I convince myself that they do, that I need them to be perfectly happy and fulfilled, I will definitely be caught in an additive pattern of striving and working to get more material things like cars, homes, TVs, clothes, honor, fame etc. And if I then find out that those don’t satisfy me, I strive and strive unceasingly. This way of living can only end in disappointment and frustration. Why? Because the happiness I ultimately seek is not in those created goods, but only in God. As St. Augustine echoed centuries ago, God has made us for himself and our heart is restless until it rests in God. So, you are happy, blessed, and delivered if you are not addicted to the material goods of this world. Finally, the Beatitudes are about the attitude of Jesus’s disciples, which are indifference, detachment and apathy to material and worldly goods and values.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Invasion of Divine Grace

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Gregory the Great Church, North Branch, MN

Sunday, February 6, 2022

The first reading from Isaiah 6 and the Gospel from Luke 5 are wonderful parallel accounts of two great biblical figures who have been called by God. Isaiah is sitting and praying in the holy Temple in the year when King Uzziah died. Suddenly, God breaks into his life with stupendous power. Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple.” One thing about great and powerful spiritual experiences is that we don’t forget them. They mark and define our life. What happened to Isaiah is the invasion of grace— gift. Grace comes without our asking for it or manipulating it. Grace means you are loved even though you are unlovable. You are invited even though you don’t deserve it. There is always a sense of not being worthy. Having experienced the breakthrough of grace, having seen the Lord in his glory, Isaiah acknowledges his unworthiness, “Woe to me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips.” After that what does God do? He does not deny Isaiah’s unclean lips. He does not tell him he is great and his lips are fine. God sends an angel to purify his lips. With his lips made clean, Isaiah is able to respond to God’s summon, “Here I am, Lord, send me.”

In the Gospel, Jesus is at the shore of the sea preaching. Without asking for permission, and without being invited, Jesus gets into Simon’s boat and begins to give orders. For a first century Galilean fisherman, a boat meant a lot. It wasn’t just a means of transportation, it was his whole livelihood. It is like his shop, a place of doing his business. Imagine someone getting into your car uninvited and then starts telling you where to go. I believe you would be fearful and furious. This is the New Testament version of the invasion of grace. Peter didn’t ask for it. He wasn’t expecting it or expecting some big changes in his life. He and his colleagues had worked hard all night without catching any fish. By morning, they were getting ready to go home in disappointment. Then, Jesus shows up, enters his boat, and begins to give orders. He tells Peter, “Duc in Altum!” i.e. “put out into the deep” water. Every encounter with God is always an invitation, a summon to go into the deep. Some of us spend our lives fooling around by the sea shore, and living in the shallows. We may be exceedingly successful in the eyes of the world, but spiritually speaking, we are living our lives at the sea shore. Like little kids, we are playing on the sand without putting our feet into the water. But God doesn’t want that for us. He wants to bring us into the depth. So, he breaks into Peter’s life. He gets into Peter’s boat and orders him to stop playing around. 

After being ordered to go into the deep, Peter protests, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the net.” He is an experienced fisherman. He knows the water; he knows how to fish in it. You may have experience this as well. The Lord breaks in uninvited and then calls you into deep water. And you probably say some version of what Peter said: Well, I have been trying all my life to find happiness, to find peace, to find spiritual meaning and yet find nothing. And that’s just the point. You are trying on your own terms. And as long as your trying is your own business, your own project, you are not going to get it. Look at Peter! The great moment happens when he willingly cooperates with grace. In every encounter with God, grace comes first. But once grace breaks through, God wants us to cooperate with his love. God does not turn us into passive puppets. He wants to waken our minds, wills, hearts, bodies, energies in cooperation. As soon as Peter follows the promptings of grace, he finds so many fish that his boat begins to sink. Some people came to help him to prevent his boat from going under. What does this mean? When you allow Jesus to get into your life, you let him command you, you allow him to be the Lord of your life, you stop playing along the sea shore, you stop playing around with our own projects, you are going to find so much life that overwhelms you and in fact, attracts other people to take in some of the life you have been given. This is exactly what we find in the life of all the saints. People get attracted to the saints. Why? Because there is so much life and grace around them. 

In the wake of this invasion of grace, Simon acknowledges his sin: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Consider this! The acknowledgment of sin did not come from the very beginning. It is not the sine qua non for grace. It is not when you say you are sorry that grace is given to you. That’s not how it works. The confession of sin is always the consequence of the invasion of grace. In the light of Christ, in the light that Christ brings, Peter sees his own inadequacies. When you compare your life and the life that Jesus is offering you, you will definitely acknowledge your sinfulness. One of the signs that you are not doing well in your spiritual life is when you are reluctant to admit your sinfulness. Once you agree that everything is fine and great with you, that’s a sign that you are not standing in the light of grace. Check this out! Jesus does not say to Peter, you are okay. God did not tell Isaiah that his lips are pure. God acknowledged it and then sent an angel to purify the lips of Isaiah. Jesus tells Peter to get up and that from now onwards he will be catching, not fish, but men. After Isaiah and Peter were purified, they were sent on mission. After Isaiah was cleansed, he declared, “Here I am, Lord, send me.” As for Simon, Jesus says to him, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” So, in these two readings, we have the breakthrough of grace, acknowledgement of sin, and the command to go on mission. That means, go and become an agent of grace for other people. 

Why does God invade our lives? Because he wants us to be fully alive. The glory of God is the human person fully alive. God does not want us to play around like kids. He wants us out in the great adventure of the spiritual life. One great lesson to be learned in these great readings is that whether at work, as is the case with Simon Peter, or in a place of worship and prayer, as in the case of Isaiah, God can always come to us. That’s why it is important to be spiritually alert, and not to be carried away or distracted by the affairs of this world because we don’t know when God is going to break in. Everything we do should be done with a keen sense of God’s presence.