“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
OPENING PRAYER
A Three O’Clock Prayer
Dear Lord, remembering the hour when You experienced death
So that we might have Eternal Life,
May we appreciate in our hearts
the necessity of Your sacrifice for us
And with Your help, Your guidance, and Your grace,
May we be made worthy of it.
COLLECT
Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care,
that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always by your protection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity
of the Holy Sprit,
one God, for ever and ever.
READING I
Is 6:1-2a, 3-8
In the year King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,
with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above.
They cried one to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook
and the house was filled with smoke.
Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
living among a people of unclean lips;
yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me,
holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
He touched my mouth with it, and said,
“See, now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said; “send me!”
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)
CCC 332 Angels have been present since creation and throughout the history of salvation, announcing this salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham’s hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets, just to cite a few examples.1 Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor and that of Jesus himself.2
CCC 712 The characteristics of the awaited Messiah begin to appear in the “Book of Emmanuel” (“Isaiah said this when he saw his glory,”3 speaking of Christ), especially in the first two verses of Isaiah 11:
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.4
CCC 1137 The book of Revelation of St. John, read in the Church’s liturgy, first reveals to us, “A throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne”: “the Lord God.”5 It then shows the Lamb, “standing, as though it had been slain”: Christ crucified and risen, the one high priest of the true sanctuary, the same one “who offers and is offered, who gives and is given.”6 Finally it presents “the river of the water of life. .. flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,” one of most beautiful symbols of the Holy Spirit.7
CCC 1138 “Recapitulated in Christ,” these are the ones who take part in the service of the praise of God and the fulfillment of his plan: the heavenly powers, all creation (the four living beings), the servants of the Old and New Covenants (the twenty-four elders), the new People of God (the one hundred and forty-four thousand),8 especially the martyrs “slain for the word of God,” and the all-holy Mother of God (the Woman), the Bride of the Lamb,9 and finally “a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and tongues.”10
CCC 2584 In their “one to one” encounters with God, the prophets draw light and strength for their mission. Their prayer is not flight from this unfaithful world, but rather attentiveness to The Word of God. At times their prayer is an argument or a complaint, but it is always an intercession that awaits and prepares for the intervention of the Savior God, the Lord of history.11
CCC 2809 The holiness of God is the inaccessible center of his eternal mystery. What is revealed of it in creation and history, Scripture calls “glory,” the radiance of his majesty.12 In making man in his image and likeness, God “crowned him with glory and honor,” but by sinning, man fell “short of the glory of God.”13 From that time on, God was to manifest his holiness by revealing and giving his name, in order to restore man to the image of his Creator.14
1 Cf. Job 38:7 (where angels are called “sons of God”); Gen 3:24; 19; 21: 17; 22:11; Acts 7:53; Ex 23:20-23; Judg 13; 6:11-24; Is 6:6; 1 Kings 19:5.
2 Cf. Lk 1:11, 26.
3 Jn 12:41; cf. Isa 6-12.
4 Isa 11:1-2.
5 Rev 4:2, 8; Isa 6:1; cf. Ezek 1:26-28.
6 Rev 5:6; Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Anaphora; cf. Jn 1:29; Heb 4:14-15; 10:19-2.
7 Rev 22:1; cf. 21:6; Jn 4:10-14.
8 Cf. Rev 4-5; 7:1-8; 14:1; Isa 6:2-3.
9 Rev 6:9-11; Rev 21:9; cf. 12.
10 Rev 7:9.
11 Cf. Am 7:2, 5; Isa 6:5, 8, 11; Jer 1:6; 15: 15-18; 20: 7-18.
12 Cf. Ps 8; Isa 6:3.
13 Ps 8:5; Rom 3:23; cf. Gen 1:26.
14 Col 3:10.
APPLICATION
This incident–the call of Isaiah to the office of Prophet–happened over 2,600 years ago and yet it has a lesson, a practical lesson, for each one of us today. Every one of us, every human being on earth has his own mission to perform. Each one of us has a personal vocation, a special purpose in life, which God expects (but will not force him) to perform. And this personal task is in addition to the basic, the principal purpose God has for each one of us, namely, that we should work our way to heaven.
I said it is in addition to our principal purpose, but in fact it is rather the means through which we shall attain to our principal purpose. In other words if we carry out faithfully our particular vocation we shall earn heaven.
Catholics too often understand by vocation a call to serve God in the priesthood or the religious life. This is a vocation, but, so are the various other calls which God gives to men and women in lay life. The call to the married life is a divine vocation, and in many, if not most cases, a more difficult vocation than that of the priest or the religious. The call to the single life when a man or woman, through no personal fault, does not find a life-partner, is also a vocation, and one in which God is frequently served loyally, in spite of difficulties and great personal problems and heart-aches.
We are all then in God’s army and each one of us has his or her task to perform. Our eternal fate, our eternal destiny, will depend on how well we carry out the task given us.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM
Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;
I will worship at your holy temple
and give thanks to your name.
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
Because of your kindness and your truth;
for you have made great above all things
your name and your promise.
When I called, you answered me;
you built up strength within me.
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
All the kings of the earth shall give thanks to you, O LORD,
when they hear the words of your mouth;
and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD:
“Great is the glory of the LORD.”
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
Your right hand saves me.
The LORD will complete what he has done for me;
your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;
forsake not the work of your hands.
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
READING II
1 Cor 15:1-11
I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he was buried;
that he was raised on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
After that, Christ appeared to more
than five hundred brothers at once,
most of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep.
After that he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles.
Last of all, as to one born abnormally,
he appeared to me.
For I am the least of the apostles,
not fit to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me has not been ineffective.
Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;
not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.
Therefore, whether it be I or they,
so we preach and so you believed.
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)
CCC 186 From the beginning, the apostolic Church expressed and handed on her faith in brief formula normative for all.1 But already very early on, the Church also wanted to gather the essential elements of her faith into organic and articulated summaries, intended especially for candidates for Baptism:
This synthesis of faith was not made to accord with human opinions, but rather what was of the greatest importance was gathered from all the Scriptures, to present the one teaching of the faith in its entirety. And just as the mustard seed contains a great number of branches in a tiny grain, so too this summary of faith encompassed in a few words the whole knowledge of the true religion contained in the Old and the New Testaments.2
CCC 519 All Christ’s riches “are for every individual and are everybody’s property.”3 Christ did not live his life for himself but for us, from his Incarnation “for us men and for our salvation” to his death “for our sins” and Resurrection “for our justification”.4 He is still “our advocate with the Father”, who “always lives to make intercession” for us.5 He remains ever “in the presence of God on our behalf, bringing before him all that he lived and suffered for us.”6
CCC 552 Simon Peter holds the first place in the college of the Twelve;7 Jesus entrusted a unique mission to him. Through a revelation from the Father, Peter had confessed: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Our Lord then declared to him: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”8 Christ, the “living Stone”,9 thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it.10
CCC 601 The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of “the righteous one, my Servant” as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of sin.11 Citing a confession of faith that he himself had “received”, St. Paul professes that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.”12 In particular Jesus’ redemptive death fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering Servant.13 Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God’s suffering Servant.14 After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles.15
CCC 624 “By the grace of God” Jesus tasted death “for every one”.16 In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only “die for our sins”17 but should also “taste death”, experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb,18 reveals God’s great sabbath rest19 after the fulfillment20 of man’s salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe.21
CCC 627 Christ’s death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union which the person of the Son retained with his body, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for “it was not possible for death to hold him” 22 23 and therefore “divine power preserved Christ’s body from corruption.” Both of these statements can be said of Christ: “He was cut off out of the land of the living”,24 and “My flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption.”25 Jesus’ resurrection “on the third day” was the sign of this, also because bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death.26
CCC 639 The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness. In about A.D. 56 St. Paul could already write to the Corinthians: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. ..”27 The Apostle speaks here of the living tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his conversion at the gates of Damascus.28
CCC 641 Mary Magdalene and the holy women who came to finish anointing the body of Jesus, which had been buried in haste because the Sabbath began on the evening of Good Friday, were the first to encounter the Risen One.29 Thus the women were the first messengers of Christ’s Resurrection for the apostles themselves.30 They were the next to whom Jesus appears: first Peter, then the Twelve. Peter had been called to strengthen the faith of his brothers,31 and so sees the Risen One before them; it is on the basis of his testimony that the community exclaims: “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”32
CCC 642 Everything that happened during those Paschal days involves each of the apostles – and Peter in particular – in the building of the new era begun on Easter morning. As witnesses of the Risen One, they remain the foundation stones of his Church. The faith of the first community of believers is based on the witness of concrete men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them. Peter and the Twelve are the primary “witnesses to his Resurrection”, but they are not the only ones – Paul speaks clearly of more than five hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion and also of James and of all the apostles.33
CCC 652 Christ’s Resurrection is the fulfillment of the promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself during his earthly life.34 The phrase “in accordance with the Scriptures”35 indicates that Christ’s Resurrection fulfilled these predictions.
CCC 659 “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.”36 Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys.37 But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity.38 Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand.39 Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul “as to one untimely born”, in a last apparition that established him as an apostle.40
CCC 752 In Christian usage, the word “church” designates the liturgical assembly,41 but also the local community42 or the whole universal community of believers.43 These three meanings are inseparable. “The Church” is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ’s Body.
CCC 857 The Church is apostolic because she is founded on the apostles, in three ways:
– she was and remains built on “the foundation of the Apostles,”44 the witnesses chosen and sent on mission by Christ himself;45
– with the help of the Spirit dwelling in her, the Church keeps and hands on the teaching,46 the “good deposit,” the salutary words she has heard from the apostles;47
– she continues to be taught, sanctified, and guided by the apostles until Christ’s return, through their successors in pastoral office: the college of bishops, “assisted by priests, in union with the successor of Peter, the Church’s supreme pastor”:48
You are the eternal Shepherd
who never leaves his flock untended.
Through the apostles
you watch over us and protect us always.
You made them shepherds of the flock
to share in the work of your Son. ..49
1 Cf. Rom 10:9; I Cor 15:3-5, etc.
2 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. illum. 5, 12: PG 33, 521-524.
3 John Paul II, RH II.
4 I Cor 15:3; Rom 4:25.
5 I Jn 2:1 Heb 7:25.
6 Heb 9:24.
7 Cf Mk 3:16; 9:2; Lk 24:34; I Cor 15:5.
8 Mt 16:18.
9 I Pt 2:4.
10 Cf. Lk 22:32.
11 Is 53:11; cf. 53:12; Jn 8 34-36; Acts 3:14.
12 1 Cor 15:3; cf. also Acts 3:18; 7:52; 13:29; 26:22-23.
13 Cf. Is 53:7-8 and Acts 8:32-35.
14 Cf. Mt 20:28.
15 Cf. Lk 24:25-27, 44-45.
16 Heb 2:9.
17 I Cor 15:3.
18 Cf. Jn 19:42.
19 Cf. Heb 4:7-9.
20 Cf. Jn 19:30.
21 Cf Col 1: 18-20.
22 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 51, 3.
23 Acts 2:24.
24 Is 53:8.
25 Acts 2:26-27; cf. Ps 16:9-10.
26 Cf. I Cor 15:4; Lk 24:46; Mt 12:40; Jon 2:1; Hos 6:2; cf. Jn 11:39.
27 I Cor 15:3-4.
28 Cf. Acts 9:3-18.
29 Mk 16:1; Lk 24:1; Jn 19:31,42.
30 Cf Lk 24:9-10; Mt 28:9-10; Jn 20:11-18.
31 Cf I Cor 15:5; Lk 22:31-32.
32 Lk 24:34, 36.
33 I Cor 15:4-8; cf. Acts 1:22.
34 Cf. Mt 28:6; Mk 16:7; Lk 24:6-7, 26-27, 44-48.
35 Cf. I Cor 15:3-4; cf. the Nicene Creed.
36 Mk 16:19.
37 Cf Lk 24:31; Jn 20:19, 26.
38 Cf. Acts 1:3; 10:41; Mk 16:12; Lk 24:15; Jn 20:14-15; 21:4.
39 Cf. Acts 1:9; 2:33; 7:56; Lk 9:34-35; 24:51; Ex 13:22; Mk 16:19; Ps 110:1.
40 1 Cor 15:8; cf. 9:1; Gal 1:16.
41 Cf. 1 Cor 11:18; 14:19,28,34,35.
42 Cf. 1 Cor 1:2; 16:1.
43 Cf. 1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6.
44 Eph 2:20; Rev 21:14.
45 Cf. Mt 28:16-20; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor 9:1; 15:7-8; Gal 1:1; etc.
46 Cf. Acts 2:42.
47 Cf. 2 Tim 1:13-14.
48 AG 5.
49 Roman Missal, Preface of the Apostles I.
APPLICATION
If St. Paul, the great Apostle, found it necessary to recall to the minds of his Corinthian converts the basic doctrines of the faith that he had preached to them some five years earlier, it is very fitting that we too should meditate on the same basic doctrines today. We have many of the difficulties and problems that made living a truly Christian life a hard struggle for the first Christians of Corinth. They were a relatively small group, living in the midst of pagan neighbors whose purpose in life was to get what they could out of this world. These pagans had no thought for the future and only ridicule for anyone who was foolish enough, according to their philosophy, to forego the pleasures and the comforts of this life for the sake of something they expected after death. It was far from easy to carry the Christian cross through a throng of jeering pleasure-seekers. It was hard to mortify the senses and the flesh when the neighbor’s motto in life was “eat, sleep and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
But what of us Christians today? Is our lot that much easier; have we no pagans or paganism to contend with? Leaving out for the moment the countries that have not yet learned of Christianity–how Christian is the so-called western world? More than half of the people of Europe are living under a regime that not alone denies Christianity but proclaims that there is no God, and no future for man but the grave. And how Christian are the peoples of the other half of Europe, and Europe’s western allies, who, for political and commercial reasons, condemn the eastern atheists? In theory they do not deny the existence of God, but what part does God play in their national legislation and their international deliberations? To come down from the legislators to the masses: what part does the law of the Gospel play in the lives of the majority of them?
The Christian of today is tempted on all sides to forget his Christian calling. He is tempted to forget the future life and urged to live in the present, to enjoy the pleasures of the moment, to join in the mad rush for worldly wealth and power. But as Christians, we have a philosophy of life which shows up the folly and the emptiness of these temptations. Granted that this world could give us (which, of course, it cannot) all the pleasures, all the wealth, all the power we desire, death will still come to cut us off from all these cherished things. And what then?
We know that our true home is in heaven, that true happiness consists in loving God and neighbor, that true wealth is supernatural grace and virtue, which will last for all eternity. The Incarnation, death and Resurrection of our Savior, of which St. Paul reminds us today, are for us an absolute guarantee that God wants us in heaven and that we shall be with him in heaven if we live the few short years given us in the world, as true Christians, lovers of God and of Christ.
GOSPEL
BENEDICAMUS DOMINO 