5TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME : WHAT MISSION IS YOUR CATHOLIC-CHRISTIAN VOCATION CALLING YOU TO FULFILL ?..........

Unclean lips, Denial, Persecution, these are the initial responses of selfish sinfulness that Isaiah, Simon, and Saul, committed against the Lord God and the person of Jesus the Christ. Yet God did not punish them, but gave them each a mission to complete in cooperation with the Divine Plan of Salvation History. Isaiah, who admitted in today's First Reading from Is. 6:1-2a,-3-8; that he had spoken of the Lord God with, "unclean lips", and as coming from, "a people of unclean lips", is permitted to see the glory of God in the Temple and called to be a prophetic voice to God's People, becoming one of the greatest Prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures. Simon the fisherman, who Jesus the Christ called to be an Apostle, confessed that he was a sinful man and yet even after becoming a Disciple sinned by denying Jesus three times in one day before His Death and Resurrection. Yet again, Jesus forgave him and entrusted him with the mission of being the primary leader of the Christian Church, the 1st Pope, so to speak. Saul, who became Paul, a devout Jew and learned Pharisee was first a persecutor of the early followers of Christ. Even carrying out his persecutions to the point of death, as chronicled in the Christian Scriptures by Saul's presence at the stoning death of St. Stephen the Deacon and First Martyr of the Church. But God did not cast off Saul or condemn him, but powerfully converted Paul to Christ and unfolded through him a mission of evangelization that made him the most prolific of writers of the Christian Scriptures. Each of these three Isaiah the Prophet, Peter the Apostle, Paul the Evangelist, had a vocation, a Calling from the Divine to share in the mission and ministry of God's People. We too, as the baptized have a vocation, a Call placed in our lives by God as Disciples of Jesus the Christ. Catholic-Christians tend to think of vocations as a call to the Priesthood or Religious Life. But Marriage and the Single Life are also vocations most people are called to answer. How will you commit or renew your lives in answer to the Call God is inviting you to embrace ? And what share in the mission and ministry of the Community of Believers and the wider World will you serve ? That is the lesson and the message the Sacred Scriptures on this 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time summons you to hear and respond to. Do not be afraid of the deep waters or the leap of faith it may require you to negotiate, as you respond to the Divine Plan for your lives and produce meaningful things for God's glory and the Common good..........Peace + Prayers in the Prophetic Voice of God Calling YOU, Fr. Troy