This Sunday, all three of our Mass readings speak of very similar series of events: an encounter with the Lord, followed by a moment of forgiveness and conversion, followed by a call to prophesy or preach. Isaiah has a vision of the Lord; then a seraph touches Isaiah's lips with a coal from the altar and tells him that his sin is purged; then he responds to the Lord's call for someone to send to prophesy. St. Paul refers to the risen Lord's appearance to him despite his having persecuted the Church, and implicitly to his conversion, and to his subsequent work as a preacher of the Gospel. Simon Peter and his companions encounter the Lord anew after seeing him work miracles and hearing him preach, when at his command they lower their nets into the deep water and make a great catch of fish; then Jesus tells him not to be afraid because of his sinfulness, and adds that he will now "be catching men."

I would like to make two main points about what we learn from these accounts. First, encounter with the Lord precedes forgiveness and conversion. Indeed, it is precisely the cause of forgiveness and conversion - it is even the cause of our realization of our need for these things to begin with. We do not realize our guilt, and then undergo conversion, and ask for forgiveness, and then know the Lord's presence. We encounter the Lord, and in and because of his presence we realize our guilt, and ask forgiveness and cooperate in conversion. We might consider in this context the Servant of God Pope John Paul the Great's words in his encyclical On the Mercy of God (nos. 6, 13) about conversion as the fruit of the encounter with and hence discovery of the merciful God.

One should, I want to add, think in this context especially of the sacraments of Baptism and Penance and the Eucharist. Baptism takes away original sin and any personal sin. Penance takes away subsequent sin, and is necessary especially if we have committed mortal sin. Eucharistic Communion takes away venial sin (in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, after receiving Communion, the priest says to himself the same words that the seraph said to Isaiah: "Now that this has touched my lips, my wickedness is removed, my sin purged"). As sacraments, these are actions that by the very fact of being done make God's grace, God himself, present and active. It is not that God first forgives us as if from afar, and only then admits us into his presence in these sacraments. Rather, it is in these very sacraments, in which, again, by their very nature as sacraments, he is present, that he gives us forgiveness and new life. And furthermore, as a kind of extension in advance of this sacramental presence, he comes to us even before we have received them, to bring us to them - to make us (or, more typically, our parents) desire Baptism; to make us desire Penance and Reconciliation, and Communion - which is to say, to give us, in and through his presence, the beginning of forgiveness and conversion.

Second, conversion and prophetic/evangelizing mission are inextricably linked. God unites us with himself and gives us forgiveness and a share in his own holiness not only for our own sake, but also so that he can work through us for others. So, on the one hand, conversion and holiness will not be complete, as it were, until and unless they include cooperation with God's salvific will for all. And, on the other hand, when we appreciate that it is encounter with God that brings about conversion, then we can also appreciate in a greater way the importance our own holiness in our work of evangelization. It is especially in God's work in and through us - in our own holiness - that others will be able in turn to begin to encounter him and undergo conversion.

These interconnections among conversion, encounter with the Lord, and evangelization have been stated in more detail, with special reference to our American context, by John Paul in his apostolic exhortation The Church in America. There, he speaks of the meanings of encounter and conversion, and of how the one leads to the other. He explains that conversion leads us into communion with God and the Church, and that this flows into solidarity with all people. And he focuses on evangelization as a key expression of this solidarity.

By way of conclusion of this reflection, we might consider the connection between the beginning and the end of the Gospel account of the Lord Jesus' interaction with Simon Peter, and so between the beginning and end of the encounter-conversion-evangelization dynamic. Jesus tells Simon to put out into deep water for a catch. Jesus subsequently tells Simon that he will catch men. In our lives, we must go into the deep spiritually, so that we will more fully encounter the Lord, as did Simon Peter after the great catch. And we must also go into the deep in our evangelizing mission, so that we will catch many other men and women for the Lord.

How are we to do these things? This might be a good time to look again at yet another of John Paul's writings, his post-Jubilee apostolic letter At the Beginning of the New Millenium. John Paul there takes Jesus' words to Simon Peter, his instruction to put out into the deep, as his starting point, and considers at length their meaning for us. Aided by our own encounter with God, helped in this encounter by the prayers and example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the prayers and example and teaching of Sts. Peter and Paul and the Servant of God John Paul the Great, and the example and teaching of Pope Benedict XVI, let us put out into the deep to and for God.