Isaiah's story of his vocation, told in the form of a vision of God, offers three important elements for our consideration so that we may learn to live out more fully our vocation as Christians and any other specific vocation which we may live in the Church, such as marriage, priesthood, consecrated lay life or religious life. These three important elements are: self-knowledge with an acknowledgement of our sinfulness; purification, and God's call.

Isaiah acknowledges his sinfulness and this allows him to accept the purification which the angel offers with fire. Once he is purified he can hear God's call and he has the courage to answer without hesitation or bargaining: "Here am I, send me".

Though we are sinful and weak, even fearful, like Isaiah, God nevertheless accepts us and loves us unconditionally with a love represented here by fire. When God calls us to serve, to become an apostle of the Gospel, he does not ask us to rely on our own strength but purifies and so strengthens us with the fire of divine love.