Heard there’s a big game today, so I think I’ll make a double-batch.
Extra beans. Extra tomatoes. Extra meat. Extra bay leaves and spices. That’s kinda how we roll on Super Sunday in America isn’t it? If “plenty” is good, then “more” will be better.
There’s a part of me that wants to resist this impulse – this tilting of my mind and heart towards excess. I am reminded of the Native American term “wetiko”. It describes a spiritual sickness, a dark shadow of selfishness and self-centeredness that actually feeds on itself. We give it power, we obey it. We let ourselves get carried away by it. And few cultural rituals better exemplify this dark spirit than the Super Bowl – the NFL’s annual feast of self-promotion and overindulgence.
But that’s when I noticed something intriguing: How the Mass readings on Super Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, also seem to turn our attention toward excess.
It’s there in the passage we hear from the prophet Isaiah:
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!”
It’s there in the gospel reading, too – Luke’s telling of the call of Simon Peter. The professional fisherman is having a particularly bad day…until he encounters Jesus. Then the tables are turned:
…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.
In a sense, you could say we’re getting a double-batch of God’s glory in today’s readings. And perhaps this is God’s subtle gift to us on Super Sunday. Surrounded by the temptation to turn our hearts toward American excess and our NFL idols, God calls us back.
God reminds us of our sinfulness, of our unclean lips. And God then sends us out on mission (broken though we are) to help reclaim the defective world in which we live. To help lead others back from the precipice of excess.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 
Simply superb, John.