Episode 116: Year C – 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time
In today’s episode, we focus on five details in the readings for this upcoming 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. The first two details are found in the first reading, taken from Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8. The related apologetical topics are repetitious prayer and the theme of purification by fire, which relates to the doctrine of Purgatory. The next two details come from the second reading, taken from 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. The apologetical topics that come to the fore are the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection and man’s cooperation with grace. Finally, the fifth detail comes from the Gospel, which is taken from Luke 5:1-11. The apologetical topic of focus for this Gospel is Peter’s headship among the apostles.
Readings: Click Here
Looking for Sunday Catholic Word Merchandise? Look no further! Click Here
Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Dr. Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In today’s episode, we’re going to focus on five details in the readings for this upcoming 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. The first two details are found in the first reading, taken from Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8. The related apologetical topics are repetitious prayer and the theme of purification by fire, which relates to the doctrine of Purgatory. The next two details come from the second reading, taken from 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. The apologetical topics that come to the fore are the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection and man’s cooperation with grace. Finally, the fifth detail comes from the Gospel, which is taken from Luke 5:1-11. The apologetical topic of focus for this Gospel is Peter’s headship among the apostles.
Let’s start with the first reading, which, again, is taken from Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8. Here’s what we read:
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.
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!”
The detail worth highlighting for our purposes is the cry of the Seraphim, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!” Now, I said in the introduction that the related apologetical topic is repetitious prayer. How so? Well, John sees these same Seraphim in his heavenly revelation recorded in the Book of Revelation singing the same thing over 800 years later. Here’s what he records in Revelation 4:8: “And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to sing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
Notice, “they never cease to sing.” They were singing the thrice-holiness of God at the time of Isaiah’s vision and they’re continuously singing the thrice-holiness of God at the time of John’s vision. Repetitious prayer, therefore, is not intrinsically bad or evil.
This, of course, relates to the Catholic practice of praying the rosary. As you many of you know, some Protestants object to the Catholic devotion of praying the rosary on account of it involving repetitious prayer. But as we see with the Seraphim in heaven, there’s nothing wrong with repetitious prayer in and of itself. Repetitious prayer only becomes bad when we start thinking that the quantity of the words is what counts for obtaining the goal that we have in mind in saying the prayer.
The next detail in this first reading that I want to highlight is the purging of Isaiah’s sin with the ember that the angel puts to Isaiah’s mouth. Isaiah records,
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.”
The theme that I want to draw to your attention here is purgation by fire. The “ember,” which maps on with the image of fire, purges Isaiah’s sin. This has apologetical significance because it provides us an interpretative key for understanding the testing of works by fire in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15. There, St. Paul describes what takes on the day of judgment: each man’s work will be tested by fire to see of what sort it is. If any man’s work burns up in the fire, such works are represented by wood, hay, and straw, the man will suffer loss, yet he will be saved as through fire. Given the Old Testament backdrop of fire purging sins, we can interpret Paul’s description as a purging of sins. And since this purging takes place at judgment, which is after death, it follows that Paul is describing a postmortem purification of a Christan, which is nothing other than Purgatory.
Let’s now turn to the second reading, which, again, is taken from 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. Here’s the whole text:
I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he was buried;
that he was raised on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
After that, Christ appeared to more
than five hundred brothers at once,
most of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep.
After that he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles.
Last of all, as to one born abnormally,
he appeared to me.
For I am the least of the apostles,
not fit to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me has not been ineffective.
Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;
not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.
Therefore, whether it be I or they,
so we preach and so you believed.
As I mentioned in the introduction, there are three details that I want to focus on here. The first is what scholars identify as a creedal formula:
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he was buried;
that he was raised on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
The apologetical significance of this is that scholars date this creedal formula within six years of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Paul informs us that this saying was a part of the apostolic preaching (1 Cor. 15:11), which leads many to conclude that he most likely received it in A.D. 39 when he visited Peter and James in Jerusalem three years after his conversion in 36 (Gal. 1:18-19). Christian apologist William Lane Craig argues this in his book The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (pages 47–48).
Now, this provides us with early testimony for several things: that Jesus died, that he was buried, and that the tomb was empty, which follows from the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. The temporal proximity that these claims have to the events that they are about excludes any possibility of legendary developments. It also makes the claims subject to verification or falsification. Given such early testimony of these claims, we have good reason to conclude that these claims are historically reliable. Jesus really did die. He really was buried. And the tomb really was empty after they buried him. And with these facts, we can assess the reasonableness of the Christian explanation of these facts—namely, that Jesus rose from the dead.
The second detail of the second reading that I want to highlight, which also has to do with Jesus’ resurrection, is the record of the witnesses that saw Jesus after he had died and was buried. Paul says over 500 brethren saw the Lord, “most of whom are still living.” This provides reason to believe that Paul wasn’t lying about the claim that many saw Jesus, nor was it a legendary development. Why make your claim subject to falsification if you’re just making this stuff up? Moreover, if the people whom Paul says saw Jesus are still alive, then, surely, there’s not enough time for legends to develop. The people still living would be able to exercise oversight of the transmission of the story. So, that Paul makes the resurrection claim within a time frame when eyewitnesses were still alive we can conclude that this claim is historically reliable—people really did see Jesus after he had died and was buried.
The third detail is Paul’s statement about grace not being ineffective and his hard work. He writes,
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me has not been ineffective.
Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;
The point I want to draw your attention to here is how both God’s grace and Paul’s action is involved. He acknowledges that what he did—the hard work—is something that he did. Yet, he also acknowledges that such hard work was the product of God’s grace. If God’s grace were ineffective, then Paul wouldn’t have toiled harder than the rest of the disciples. But Paul did toil harder than the rest of the disciples. Therefore, God’s grace was effective in him.
This is important in apologetical discussions with Protestants about the role of good works in our salvation. Like Paul, we Catholics believe that whatever good work we do that contributes to our salvation is done in, through, and because of the grace of God. There are different ways within the Catholic theological tradition as to precisely how God’s grace works in us. Nevertheless, we do affirm that whatever we do on a supernatural level that action is the product of both me and God’s grace.
Okay, we now turn to the Gospel reading, which comes from Luke 5:1-11. Luke records,
While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening
to the word of God,
he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.
He saw two boats there alongside the lake;
the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.
Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,
he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore.
Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,
“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”
Simon said in reply,
“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,
but at your command I will lower the nets.”
When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish
and their nets were tearing.
They signaled to their partners in the other boat
to come to help them.
They came and filled both boats
so that the boats were in danger of sinking.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him,
and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
who were partners of Simon.
Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid;
from now on you will be catching men.”
When they brought their boats to the shore,
they left everything and followed him.
The detail that I want to focus on in this passage is general focus on Simon. Notice, Jesus gets in Simon’s boat. Simon speaks on behalf of the others, stating hesitation with Jesus’ command to cast the nets but nevertheless conceding the command. Simon begged for Jesus’ forgiveness. Jesus says to Simon, “Do not be afraid . . . you will be catching men.”
Simon is the focus of the entire narrative. Why? I would argue he is the focus because Christ wills for him to be head of the apostles. Notice Jesus addresses Simon when he speaks of the apostolic ministry of “catching men.” The implication is that Simon will head that ministry. And it’s from Simon’s boat, the Church, that men will be caught.
Is this a slam dunk argument for Peter’s headship among the apostles? No! But it does contribute to the cumulative evidence within the New Testament of Peter being at the helm for the apostolic college.
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that does it for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The readings for this upcoming 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C, provide us with a plethora of material for apologetical discussions.
- We have a detail that relates to repetitious prayer, which is essential to conversations about the rosary.
- We have a detail that relates to the theme of purgation of sins by fire, which is essential to purgatory conversations.
- We have details that provides grounds for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection.
- We have a detail that provides us a correct understanding of the relation between our good works and God’s grace, which is essential to conversations about the causal role of works in our salvation.
As always, I want to thank you for subscribing to the podcast. And please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well through any podcast platform that they use. You can also access the archived episodes of the Sunday Catholic Word at sundaycatholicword.com.
You might also want to check out the other great podcasts in our Catholic Answers podcast network: Trent Horn’s The Counsel of Trent, Joe Heschmeyer’s Shameless Popery, Jimmy Akin’s The Jimmy Akin podcast, and Tim Staples “1 on 1 with Tim,” all of which can be found at catholic.com. And if you want to follow more of my own work, check out my website at karlobroussard.com
One last thing: if you’re interested in getting some cool mugs and stickers with my logo, “Mr. Sunday podcast,” go to shop.catholic.com.
I hope you have a blessed 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. Until next time, God Bless.