NOTES for Isa 6:1-12
Isaiah’s prophecies constantly speak of what will become of the world without God—what will become of a world in which people do not accept or acknowledge God. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” the Lord asks. This question expresses the Lord’s desire to see us, the fact that He needs us. He sends the prophet—a person whom He has cleansed from sin—to call people to Himself. In Proverbs, too, we read of the need for work: spiritual labor for deliverance from sins and vices. Thus, in today’s reading, two great paths in the relationship between humanity and God converge: the constant call to repentance and the call to spiritual labor. It is repentance before God and our neighbor—before the person with whom we quarrel and whom we envy, over whom we exalt ourselves and whom we push around. The whole text of today’s reading strongly recalls the prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian that we read during Lent and that strengthens our understanding of the fundamental vices of the human heart from which judgment upon the world proceeds.