Fat Tuesday: Bring on the Incense!

Posted by admin on February 2, 2010 under 2. Fat Tuesday | Be the First to Comment

With the heavy smoke of incense filling the temple and the choirs of angels singing kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, Isaiah receives his vocation to go where he is sent as a prophet. His overwhelming experience of the Holy, his humility and purification, will serve as his calling card. He will need these credentials for the critical message he will speak to the people Judah as it tumbles deeper into injustice and destruction.

For Simon, it isn’t in the incense filled temple but on the lapping waters of Lake Gennaseret in the morning light, after a long night of fruitless labor, that he hears the call. His response is similar to Isaiah’s. So overwhelming is the catch of fish, a sign of the power of Christ, that he fearfully admits his unworthiness. Both Isaiah and Peter respond with humility and awe to the awesome display of God’s power. Both are called–or more precisely they are commissioned–to a specific service in spite of their perceived shortcomings.

I find it interesting that the call comes in these two quite different settings: the liturgy and the workplace; ora et labora. So much of our work as campus ministers involves these two experiences. We gather students in prayer, especially at the Sunday Eucharist, and we give students an opportunity to serve in soup kitchens, tutoring sessions and alternative spring break trips. Are they–and more to the point, are we–aware of the Holy in both of these settings? Can we drop our defenses and let ourselves be overwhelmed by God?

This morning I received an email from my religious community’s vocation office that this coming Sunday, the Church in the United States will celebrate the World Day for Consecrated Life. Though most in the Universal Church celebrate it today on the Feast of the Presentation (Candlemas), the Church in the United States moves it to the following Sunday, to allow for greater participation. The vocational focus of the readings this Sunday are quite providential as we recognize the contributions that religious sisters, brothers and priests, have made to the Church at large and in campus ministry in particular. Lest you accuse me of being self serving, lacking the humility of my namesake, I point out that next Sunday (February 14th) is World Marriage Day, when we will honor the witness of married campus ministers. Of course, every Sunday is Diocesan Priest Day since it is the Lord’s Day

Fr. Peter J. Walsh, CSC is an assistant chaplain at Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University.