Today’s readings: Isaiah 6, 1-8; 1 Corinthians 15, 1-11; Luke 5, 1-11.

The three Scripture readings today highlight for us a basic truth in the process of deepening our faith: the deep and true knowledge of God always goes hand in hand with a painful self-knowledge. Without coming to terms with our true self, we risk rendering faith superficial, not grounded as it should be in our own reality and experience.

The contemplation of God can make us more present to our own selves, giving us the courage and the capacity to face our own paradoxes. In his book What the Mystics Know, Richard Rohr writes how seeing with the eyes of mystics can still be relevant in our busy modern world. This is very true, particularly when in our days many are those who find it hard to forgive themselves, to be reconciled to their past, to quit carrying the burden of past sins or omissions.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah experiences the vision of God’s holiness and immediately acknowledges the wretched state he was in. God’s holiness was for him medicinal, it healed his unclean lips and made him find the boldness to speak out the truth as a messenger of God.

It is the same story with Paul and Peter in the second reading and in the gospel. They both stood up, believing strongly that God’s grace puts order in the ruins we at times experience and carry within.

This is also the basic truth underlying the long and winding journey of God’s people as narrated throughout the Scriptures, starting from the earliest experience of God’s people in the slavery of Egypt. We can only come to believe in God, that He exists and that He is a loving God, after we experience Him as healer and saviour.

Deep faith never starts with a mere confession of beliefs, but with the acknowledgment within that God really saves and that His words come true. This is perhaps where we constantly miss the point in handing down the faith from generations past to the future. People come to believe only when they are touched by God himself.

The Church’s mission in the process of transmitting the faith is not simply to teach doctrine about God, but mainly to facilitate new pathways to the divine. This happens in the first place by being there for people, by making available to those who are true seekers God’s mercy and love. Then God Himself will do the rest.

In this day and age one of the major challenges facing those who want to believe is precisely to “put out into deep water”, as Jesus encouraged Peter to do against all odds. Unfortunately, when it comes to education in the faith, we always thought it sufficient to play in shallow waters, to be minimalists as to the demands of a truly Christian commitment. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right when in his book The Cost of Discipleship, he lamented “cheap grace”.

Cheap grace, he writes, is the deadly enemy of our Church. It means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. On the other hand, costly grace is the gospel that must be sought again and again, the gift that must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

In today’s world the Church is called to heal people not just to forgive sins. Believing is always a process, a journey, a golden opportunity to confront oneself, to take life more seriously, to boldly take positions and make choices that at times can be painful. It is this confrontation with one’s own self that helps us to dig deep inside, to face the truth about ourselves, and to let God bring out in us His own image and likeness.

Isaiah’s wretchedness did not hinder him from being sent to proclaim God’s tidings. St Paul’s hard-headedness in persecuting Christ’s Church did not keep him from becoming a graceful and hard-working apostle. St Peter’s scepticism took him nowhere when faced with the strength of Christ’s words: “Do not be afraid”.

This is always how God gracefully works in us if and when we just let go of what binds us to ourselves and believe that He always make things new.