Dear Parishioner

“Not good enough”; “You’re never going to amount to much!”  “You won’t go far!”  “You don’t have what it takes!” ”You don’t have the killer instinct!”  is any of that familiar? Any more you’d like to add?

How those words can haunt you all your life.  How they can control how you see yourself, the decisions you make, and how you relate to the world.

Some hide behind their own shortcomings, their own inadequacies or sense of failure, using arrogance as a cover and target someone else’s weakness, vulnerability, insecurities and then exploit them, using them to gain control and power over them and use it to advance their own agenda and advantage.

Others spend a lifetime of never achieving or reaching their true potential.  A life of always falling short of what they could be, are capable of, because they are so riddled with insecurity, a sense of weakness.  That little voice constantly stopping them from taking risks, seizing opportunities because fear of failure, of being laughed at, overwhelms them.

All three of our readings today demonstrate how experiencing the Divine enables us, transforms us, gives us that strength, that power, to live fully alive and be what God has planned for us all along. 

In particular, the prophet Isaiah’s vision of heavenly beings and the holiness of God is a powerful scene of God erasing any sense of inadequacy, unworthiness.  Isaiah is overwhelmed by the sense, the feeling of awe.  He feels contaminated and unworthy, and it stops him joining in with the heavenly beings’ praise.  But a Seraphim touches his mouth with a live red-hot coal, thus cleansing his lips and taking his iniquity away! 

Let God into your life.  Let his heavenly messenger touch your mouth with a live red-hot coal and take away all your fears, insecurities.  Trust in God and let his presence be your rock, your strength. And like Peter in our gospel, leave it all behind and follow Jesus!

Fr Ambrose McCambridge OSB, PP