Reflection on Mass readings for Feb. 9: Be childlike in our awe of God’s glory

Detail from "La Gloria" by Titian, 1554. (Public domain)

Reflection on Mass readings for Feb. 9 (Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8
Psalm 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

 

When we are children, we expect miracles. Since we are just beginning to learn about the world and how it works, we aren’t as set in our ways of what is possible.

The laws of physics don’t apply when our dad lifts us with his legs and we are an airplane. The reflection of light moving along the wall is indeed Tinkerbell visiting us. Thunder and lightning are the result of a heavenly bowling game – St. Michael just threw a strike!

As we grow in our experiences of the world, many of us fall into a type of materialism. We place far more stock on what we can observe with our senses and explain with our intellect than the fantastic and miraculous.

Let this week’s readings recharge our sense of awe.

To be clear, I’m not comparing childish beliefs in fairies to our belief in supernatural realities. I’m just musing that perhaps when Jesus challenges us to have childlike faith, he’s asking us to suspend our suspicious tendencies and receive the truth with hearts, unshackled by our preference for easily digested, three-dimensional sensory information.

Our first reading from Isaiah tells us of a vision of the throne room of heaven. Instead of reading through it and letting our minds quickly explain it away in metaphor and symbolism, can we use our imagination to smell the smoke? To quake with the shaking door frame and rub our eyes to clear them so we can take in the glory of the Lord? Surely we would fall prostrate on the ground, having felt our unworthiness.

In the truest sense of the word, that throne room is more real than the room we sit in right now. It’s a look behind the veil at reality itself.

“The Great Divorce,” by C.S. Lewis, is my favorite book. I am not one for fantasy novels, but this one has captivated me through multiple reads over the last twenty years. Without spoiling anything, the basic plot is that there is a bus that regularly travels from hell to heaven, where anyone can choose to stay. Lewis is clear in the foreword that the book is not a depiction of spiritual realities, but rather a contemplation of heaven and hell.

When they arrive in heaven, the inhabitants of hell discover immediately that it is more substantial, and real, than any place they have ever been. The sky is wider, the grass is truly like blades, and they can walk on water because their feet cannot penetrate the surface. Nature is punctuated with spiritual realities.

Similarly, as Christians, we should know that we walk in a different sort of space than is apparent to the naked eye. Where one sees earthly realities, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, our guardian angels, and the Blessed Mother.

The psalmist tells us, “In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.” If we only opened our childlike eyes, we would see that at each Mass, we sing with the angels and Isaiah, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!” (Is 6:3) as the Lord humbles himself to take the form of bread that we may receive him into our bodies.

Each natural day, he equips us through grace to be a part of his supernatural mission. We are charged to carry this vision of reality to the world, to pull back the veil of the mundane to see the miracle on the altar and the personal gift of every day. Woefully unworthy on our own, Christ chooses to use and equip us: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men” (Lk 5:10).

The farther they walk into heaven, Lewis’ characters grow more substantial, more able to endure and enjoy reality. When we open our eyes and hearts to the miracles and wonders among us, especially the grace offered through the sacraments, we realize God calls us through this natural world to our ultimate end in the throne room, where all is revealed as it truly is.

Soaring far higher than on our daddy’s legs, looking to the heavens for a spark of the supernatural, let’s reclaim our childlike awe at the glory of Our Father. Let’s expect miracles.

 

Cate Harmeyer worked 15 years in Catholic education and campus ministry. She and her husband, Dana, now oversee the education of their two daughters. Cate is a Notre Dame football fanatic, sourdough enthusiast, and loves spending time at the beach and in the mountains.

 

 

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