SPEAKER_00: There's a pattern that appears over and over again in the Bible whenever God calls someone to a great mission.
SPEAKER_00: First comes an encounter with God.
SPEAKER_00: Then comes an awareness of one's own weakness.
SPEAKER_00: Then comes God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, the mission.
SPEAKER_00: We see that exact pattern in today's first reading.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah enters the temple and suddenly heaven is open before him.
SPEAKER_00: He sees the Lord seated upon his throne.
SPEAKER_00: The seraphim cry out holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_00: Notice they do not say love, love, love.
SPEAKER_00: God is love, of course, but before we can understand his love, we must first understand his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness means that God is utterly unlike us, infinite, perfect, majestic, completely pure.
SPEAKER_00: The closer Isaiah comes to that holiness, the more aware he becomes of himself.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, What a wonderful prophet I am.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, Woe is me, I am doomed, for I am a man of unclean lips.
SPEAKER_00: That's always a mark of authentic holiness.
SPEAKER_00: The saints never became more impressed with themselves.
SPEAKER_00: No, they became more aware of God's greatness.
SPEAKER_00: The closer they came to the light, the more clearly they were able to see.
SPEAKER_00: That's why humility is not thinking poorly of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Humility is seeing yourself truthfully before God.
SPEAKER_00: Then comes one of the very beautiful moment in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: A seraphant takes a burning ember from the altar and touches Isaiah's lips.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: The very lips Isaiah believed made him unworthy become the place where God begins his healing.
SPEAKER_00: God does not ignore Isaiah's weakness, he transforms it.
SPEAKER_00: And only after Isaiah has been purified does God ask, Whom shall I send?
SPEAKER_00: Notice something remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: God does not force anyone, he invites.
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah freely answers, Here am I, send me.
SPEAKER_00: Those four words have changed history.
SPEAKER_00: Every vocation begins there.
SPEAKER_00: Every priest, every religious sister, every missionary, every husband, every wife, every Christian disciple says, Here I am.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I'm perfect, not because I have all the answers or everything figured out, but because I trust the one who is sending me.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us beautifully to today's feast day, the memorial of Saint Benedict, Benedict of Nursia.
SPEAKER_00: When Benedict looked at the collapse of the Roman world around him, he did not complain about the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: He himself became a light.
SPEAKER_00: He did not try to save civilization through politics or power, no, he sought holiness.
SPEAKER_00: He built communities centered on prayer, on work, on discipline and the worship of God.
SPEAKER_00: His famous motto was simple Oda et labora, pray and work.
SPEAKER_00: He understood something we often forget.
SPEAKER_00: The world is changed not first by great speeches, but by holy lives.
SPEAKER_00: Europe was rebuilt not because Benedict organized a movement, it was rebuilt because thousands of ordinary monks quietly live the gospel day after day.
SPEAKER_00: History is often changed by people no one notices.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus says something three different times in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever God repeats himself, we should pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: Fear is one of Satan's greatest weapons.
SPEAKER_00: Fear keeps people from forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: Fear keeps people from discerning a vocation, from speaking about Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Fear keeps people from becoming the saints God created them to be.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does not promise that we will avoid suffering.
SPEAKER_00: He promises something greater, that the Father knows us intimately.
SPEAKER_00: Even all the hairs on your head are counted.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: God knows things about you that you do not even know about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If he cares about something as small as a sparrow, how much more does he care about you?
SPEAKER_00: So why be afraid?
SPEAKER_00: Well, perhaps this is the lesson for us today as we wrap up this week.
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful lesson with the life of Saint Benedict.
SPEAKER_00: The world does not need more anxious Christians.
SPEAKER_00: It needs more holy Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women who have encountered God, who know their own weakness, who have allowed his grace to purify them, and who are no longer afraid to say, Here I am, Lord, send me.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Isaiah changed Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Saint Benedict changed Europe.
SPEAKER_00: And that is still how Christ changes the world, one faithful Christian at a time.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.