5th Sunday
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen Live-streaming & TV Broadcast
February 9, 2025
Your Unworthy Servant
When I pray the entire Eucharistic Prayer without concelebrating priests, at a certain point, I pray for Pope Francis and I pray for myself. Standing before the Lord, I refer to myself as “your unworthy servant.” Years ago, a bishop (who shall go nameless) was presiding at a solemn liturgy. One of the petitions in the Prayer of the Faithful was for him. It went like this: “We pray for Bishop ‘X’, our unworthy servant”.
Well, I stand before you as your unworthy servant. While I am not about to go to confession publicly, suffice it to say that I do go to confession often and that I beg God’s forgiveness daily. And when you come right down to it, who of us is worthy in the eyes of the God of glory and majesty? Who is worthy to preach the Gospel and to handle the Body of Christ? Or for that matter, to be a disciple? Or to go to heaven? Not for nothing do we begin Mass with the words, “I confess to Almighty God. . .” or with the plea, “You came to call sinners, Christ have mercy.” Before receiving Holy Communion we repeat the Centurion’s words, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof . . .”
Unworthiness: A Double-Edged Sword
Unworthy as we may be, we are in good company. Isaiah, Paul, and Simon Peter were all deeply conscious of their unworthiness. Isaiah thought he would die because he had seen the glory of the Lord. Paul wrote that, because he had persecuted the Church of God, he was unworthy to be an apostle. After Simon Peter hauled in a miraculous catch of fish against all odds, he realized that Jesus was not only his Teacher but indeed the Lord. Standing before him, Peter said to Jesus, “Depart from me … I am a sinful man.”
Isaiah, Paul, and Peter: three pillars of our faith, three great saints, three whose preaching resounds in our ears to this very day. Yet, standing before the Lord, they knew they were unworthy. Where does that leave us? Aren’t we all “unworthy servants”? And if so, what does that mean?
Like every other concept in the Bible, unworthiness is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it cuts to the heart of our fallen human nature. We are prone to sin. And we probably commit sin every day. “If we say we have no sin,” writes John the Evangelist, “we deceive ourselves.” But that’s not all. Not only are we prone to sin, we are finite creatures. When confronted with the immensity of God’s majesty, we feel our smallness. That’s one side of the sword of our unworthiness. Here’s the other. Unworthiness does not excuse us from loving God or doing his work on earth. It is not an “off ramp” along the highway to heaven. Indeed, the Bible is remarkably transparent about the sinfulness and frailty of those whom Lord chose to be principal actors in the drama of salvation. Think of David and Bathsheba. Think of Peter’s denials . . .
Miserando atque eligendo
A two-edged sword cuts to the quick like nothing else. One edge cuts away at presumption – the tendency to cut God down to size, our size, and even try to make God complicit in our weaknesses. The other edge cuts away at apathy and even despair – the tendency to wallow in our guilt and thus to give up on God.
Duly dissected, we had better return to the likes of Isaiah, Paul, and Peter to ask what we can learn from them and what we have in common with them. Not only do we learn from them that God ‘choses the weak to shame the strong’, we also learn that God cleanses, purifies, and strengthens those he calls. Those whom he calls he showers with his never-ending mercies.
Look at Isaiah: when he protested that he was a sinful man, the Lord sent an angel to touch his lips with a live coal from his altar. When his guilt was purged, his ears were opened to God’s call to be a prophet. He heard God say: “Whom shall we send? Who will go for us?” Isaiah could answer with every fiber of his being, “Here I am! Send me!” Look at Paul: while on the way to Damascus to arrest Christians, he saw the Risen Lord & heard him say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” In that instant, Saul became Paul. He was baptized. He became a new man. He became the Apostle to the Gentiles. Look at Simon Peter: the huge catch of fish convinced him that, in standing before Jesus, he was standing before the living God. Jesus knew Simon Peter’s weaknesses but chose him anyway to catch, not fish, but likes of us – those who would be his followers. More than once Simon Peter would need the God’s mercy in fulfilling the mission Jesus entrusted to him.
So, for a second time, I ask: “Where does all this leave us?” Chances are a live ember from God’s altar isn’t going to touch our lips. We’re not likely to see the Risen Lord on the drive home. Nor is it probable that our refrigerators will bulge with fish we didn’t buy. But our hearts should be bulging with a grace and goodness we didn’t earn. The truth is that despite our unworthiness God loves us – infinitely! He sees our sins and knows limitations better than we do, and still he calls us. In Baptism we were consecrated to be his own and to do his work. In Reconciliation the hot coals of his mercy cleanse us our sins. In the Eucharist, we are strengthened to be Jesus’ followers and co-workers. Just as God lifted up Isaiah, Paul, and Peter, so also he touches our souls with mercy; he lifts us up; he sends us to do his work.
So on this Sunday let us take to heart Paul’s profession of faith, namely, “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 . . . .” Then, sharing in God’s goodness and glory, sharing in God’s worthiness, let us do the work of God, bearing witness to the Lord in our daily life, living in such a virtuous manner that those who encounter will see in us something appealing, something worthy, something they’ve been looking for. When today you hear the words, “Go, the Mass is ended,” say to the Lord, “Here I am! Send me!”