The Fire of God’s Holiness

Today’s first reading at Mass is the famous vision of the prophet Isaiah (Is. 6:1-8):

In the year King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,
with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings:
with two they veiled their faces,
with two they veiled their feet,
and with two they hovered aloft.

They cried one to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook
and the house was filled with smoke.

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
living among a people of unclean lips;
yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me,
holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it and said,
“See, now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

Like Isaiah, we too live among a people of unclean lips. And if we’re honest with ourselves, as was Isaiah, we must admit that sometimes we’ve been people of unclean lips as well. But if Isaiah’s wickedness was removed by a fiery coal from the altar of God, how much more can we be cleansed by the Eucharist that passes our lips – God himself, Jesus Christ. And, with his Real Presence within us, animating us, how can we fail to, like Isaiah, communicate Christ’s forgiving love to others? The living, Eucharistic Lord whom we receive at Mass empowers us to say, “Here I am, send me!”