HERE I AM, SEND ME.

V SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Isaiah 6:1-2,3-8

Last week, we were presented with the call of Jeremiah to be a prophet. This week, we can hear Isaiah speaking of his own experience, when God revealed himself in all grandeur. Faced with the holiness of God, Isaiah became aware of his sinfulness, which made him unworthy of being God’s messenger. 

In a vision, Isaiah saw a solemn act of worship in God’s own court, with Him seated in his royal throne of glory. In this heavenly liturgy, the choir of angels sang:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.

His glory fills the whole earth.” (Is 6:3)

These words have been resounding for many centuries, sang in the liturgies of the Temple and of the synagogues and repeated in every Mass in the Catholic Church. When we sing these words, we sing them together with the heavenly choirs and in union with the generations of believers that preceded us. That’s why I never like to hear our parish choirs changing the words or substituting them by others. In our Sunday liturgies, we are not doing our own things; we must be in unison with the universe and with all who recognise God’s holiness and sing his praises.

Like Isaiah, when we become aware of God’s presence, we discover not only our littleness but mostly our sinfulness. How can we be in God’s presence?

“What a wretched state I am in! I am lost,

for I am a man of unclean lips

and I live among a people of unclean lips,

and my eyes have looked at the King, the Lord of Hosts.” (Is 6:5)

We are sinners, and on our own, we can never deserve to approach the Lord or even less to be engaged in his work and to be part of his plans. However, the Holy One, can take away our sins and fill us with holiness. That’s what he did to Isaiah, so that he came out transformed by his encounter with God. When God looked for a messenger, Isaiah presented himself, saying:

“Here I am, send me.”

God is still looking for people to be his messengers and to carry out his work here on earth. And he asks:

Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?

Will we answer like Isaiah: “Here I am, send me”?