OXYGEN

07 Feb – Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Christ Makes Us His Apostles
We are utterly unworthy to be the apostles of Christ and yet he sends us out to be fishers of men. He cleanses us from our sins and gives us the strength to say: “Here I am, Lord, send me.”

- The Sunday Missal
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Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord seated on a high throne; his throne filled the sanctuary; above him stood seraphs, each one with six wings.

And they cried out to one another in this way,
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
His glory fills the whole earth.’

The foundations of the threshold shook with the voice of the one who cried out, and the Temple was filled with smoke. I said:

‘What a wretched state I am in! I am lost,
for I am a man of unclean lips
and I live among a people of unclean lips,
and my eyes have looked the the King, the Lord of hosts.’

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding in his hand a live coal which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tons. With this he touched my mouth and said:

‘See now, this has touched your lips,
your sin is taken away,
your iniquity is purged.’

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying:

‘Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?’

I answered, ‘Here I am, send me.’
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1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, the gospel that you received and in which you are firmly established; because the gospel will save you only if you keep believing exactly what I preached to you – believing anything else will not lead to anything.

Well then, in the first place, I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared first to Cephas and secondly to the Twelve. Next he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died; then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles; and last of all he appeared to me too; it was as though I was born when no one expected it.

I am the least of the apostles; in fact, since I persecuted the Church of God, I hardly deserve the name apostle; but by God’s grace that is what I am, and the grace that he gave me has not been fruitless. On the contrary, I, or rather the grace of God that is with me, have worked harder than any of the others; but what matters is that I preach what they preach, and this is what you all believed.
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Luke 5:1-11

Jesus was standing one day by the lake of Gennesaret, with the crowd pressing round him listening to the word of God, when he caught sight of two boats close to the bank. The fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats – it was Simon’s – and asked them to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

When he had finished speaking he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.’ ‘Master,’ Simon replied ‘we have worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.’ And when they had done this they netted such a huge number of fish that their nets began to tear, so they signalled to their companions in the other boats to come and help them; when these came, they filled the two boats to sinking point.

When Simon Peter saw this he fell at the knees of Jesus saying, ‘Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.’ For he and all his companions were completely overcome by the catch they had made; so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. But Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on it is men you will catch.’ Then, bring their boats back to land, they left everything and followed him.
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… but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.

There was once when my little cousin was asked by my aunt to clear up his toys. His reply to the request ended with the line: “if you insist”. Today’s Gospel reminds me of this incident because there seems to be a form of reluctance on the part of Peter to want to pay out the nets.

I can imagine Peter wondering why Jesus, a man unskilled in fishing, would have asked him to pay out the nets after a fruitless night at sea. After all, he was the fisherman and he knew some things about fishing that Jesus the carpenter would not have known. There was an element of disbelief and desire to prove Jesus wrong. I believe that this statement can be applied to our daily lives. By virtue of the education that we have received and the life experience we have gained we often think that God’s ways are outdated and irrelevant to us. God appears to be distant and unappreciative of the harsh realities of the lives that we lead.

Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that God has given us this privilege to be his believers and to spread the Good News. The circumstances presented to everybody are similar but it is the response that differentiates the Christian from the non-believer. We can choose to approach it from a Christian perspective and through this bring God’s glory to all around us. We may be made to look like fools but it is certainly a joy to look like a fool in the world of man but faithful in the eyes of God.

However we need to realize that the first step lies in giving God our consent to want to serve Him. God never coerces us to do anything because He has given us free will. I pray that in our prayers today we may once again answer God’s call in the similar way as found in Prophet Isaiah: “Here I am, send me.”

(Today’s OXYGEN by Nicholas Chia)
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Prayer: Lord, we pray for the grace to accept Your will.

Thanksgiving: We give thanks for all who have accepted God’s call.

Upcoming Readings:
Mon, 08 Feb – 1 Kings 8:1-7.9-13; Mark 6:53-56; Memorial for St Jerome Emilani; Memorial for St Josephine Bakhita, Virgin
Tue, 09 Feb – 1 Kings 8:22-23.27-30; Mark 7:1-13
Wed, 10 Feb – 1 Kings 10:1-10; Mark 7:14-23; Memorial of St Scholastica, Virgin
Thu, 11 Feb – 1 Kings 11:4-13; Mark 7:24-30; Memorial for Our Lady of Lourdes; World Day of Prayer for the Sick
Fri, 12 Feb – 1 Kings 11:29-32;12:19; Mark 7: 31-37
Sat, 13 Feb – 1 Kings 12:26-32;13:33-34; Mark 8:1-10
Sun, 14 Feb – 1 Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:12.16-20; Luke 6:20-26; Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time; Chinese New Year