Promises we hope can be kept

A vatican cardinal vowed to rid the Church of clerics who are sexual abusers. God willing -- but a tall order.

To be aware, and to dare

A few things came to mind last Sunday, after hearing the readings. In the first reading, Isaiah is called, and he answers "Here I am, send me!" In the second, St. Paul talks about his commissioning to evangelize. The Gospel talks about some of the first of Jesus' disciples, and how they were called to become fishers of men. Hearing the readings and the excellent sermon of our parish priest, the following seemed noteworthy to me. First, all the commissioned men were aware of their sinfulness. St. Peter sums it up best: "Leave me Lord, I am a sinner!" But of course, the Lord loves him more than that. Second, they were called anyway. To Isaiah, these words were said:

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

Jesus says simply, "Do not be afraid."

It seems to me that here there are two aspects in this conversation between myself and God: to be aware of who God is, and of my sinfulness, and to dare to take His hand and follow after Him. I think that the former is necessary in order to get to the latter. Not because the Lord disdains the proud -- I think He calls everyone, great and small, good and bad. I think it is more the case that the proud may not be willing to take God's hand. They might instead say "I have it sorted." They might not be timid enough to dare cast their nets.

I have my own version of St. Peter's confession of guilt, and I can't say if it is good or bad, but it is how I find myself saying it. "Don't ever leave me Lord, I am a sinner! Where else can I go?" But I do pray that I will one day attain a level of faith and confidence in God so that I can stop saying that in nervous apprehension. Lord, I do believe, but please help my unbelief! But the answer is probably there already. I should put out into deep water and lower my net.

A Talk and a Discussion

I attended Mark Shea's talk earlier at the Cardinal Knox Centre, a compact presentation (pardon the pun) of just the salient bits from his new book, "Mary, Mother of the Son"

There's also this interesting thread of discussion on predestination. Worth having a look