Fr. William Fennelly OSB
Scientists tell us that of all the five senses we possess, sight is the most valuable. It’s our sight that teaches us most about the world. By our nature, human beings are creatures who, above all, want to see and understand. That is why phrases like ‘I see’ mean both that we see in a physical sense and also that understand something. Other phrases like, ‘it finally dawned on me’ use the imagery of light to indicate that we have finally grasped something that had previously eluded us. When cartoon characters like Tom and Jerry or have one of their ‘bright’ ideas, it’s often represented by a light bulb appearing above their heads and being switched on.
Many commentators were so impressed by how the light bulb changed our millennia long relationship to day and night that they feared it was so powerful that the Jewish and Christian imagery so powerful for millennia would be made redundant by it. Whilst we can admire their enthusiasm for the power of technology we also know that they were wrong, of course. The imagery of light and understanding in today’s readings retains its power continues to be meaningful.
Isaiah reminds the people that if they act justly then ‘Your integrity will go before you and the glory of the Lord behind you.’ This is a really attractive allusion to the pillar of fire by night and pillar of cloud by day going before the people of Israel as they we were lead out of Egypt by Moses, of course the pillar and the cloud were the Lord himself, leading the people out of their slavery in Egypt.
The glory of the Lord, which shines throughout the Old Testament, is for Christians finally and fully revealed in the glorious light of the resurrection of Jesus. The gospel sees, Jesus link the idea of the visibility of a city on a hilltop, with a light shining to illuminate a room. In the book of Revelation the seer reports about the heavenly Jerusalem, ‘I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb. The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and to it the kings of the earth will bring their treasure. During the day its gates will never be shut, and there will be no night there.’
The invitation of today’s scripture readings is to allow ourselves to be illuminated, to be light up. By this grace we can participate in the light of God, and can become a means of spreading that light to others. Faith enables to be enlightened by his grace, by his gift. God’s gift is what enables so many of us to be gifted in so many wonderfully different ways. Regardless of how clearly we can see or, whether we are academically gifted or not, the gift of faith helps us see and understand saving realities of God’s work active here on earth.
While this sounds optimistic and easy; faith often doesn’t find us in an easy way. Today’s gospel has a moving image of this. Jesus the son of a carpenter comes to Simon Peter the fisherman who has been fishing all night without success. Tired, no doubt disappointed, why start all over again, and perhaps catch nothing, only to have to mend the nets a second time? Why listen to this visiting preacher? That Simon Peter does listen might perhaps already indicate the gift of faith. And we see the virtue of his faith. Against the odds, by trusting in Jesus, the fishermen haul in that huge shoal. Christ’s word holds good, he is afterall trustworthy. What God wants to give each of us isn’t something miserly, small or mean. Cardinal Newman once asked the rhetorical question: ‘What is more elevating and transporting than the generosity of heart which risks everything on God’s word?’ From this perspective, Simon’s fearfulness, and our own awareness of our shortcomings, our struggles, our sin, are themselves part of a graced journey of transformation within an ever deepening life of faith. They prepare us to experience God’s forgiveness with thanksgiving, a joyful recognition of graces given and received.