| IX. Choir | 19 September |
|---|---|
| Angel with the wedding garment | Januarius |
He is more delicate, but much brighter than the angels of the ninth choir usually are because he stands in the gracious light of the Seraphic Father Francis, who constantly asks the Lord to look upon his own with the eyes with which he himself was looked upon by the Lord during his lifetime.
Saint Chajah,
the angel with the wedding garment, stands before us today. He is an angel of the ninth choir who belongs to Saint Gabriel, the great servant of God, companion of Mary, steward of the earth, patron of priests and mystics, and of those hidden and marked by God.
He is not wearing the wedding garment himself, but carries it over his arm, and is sent by the Lord to invite souls to the wedding feast. Only the Lord knows for whom the garment is intended and only the Lord knows whether He will receive this garment back before His Eyes as pure as it was when He gave it to Saint Chajah.
But there is the Mother. She is always there where the Lord, Her Beloved Son, is to help and heal. She also stands by the roads and fences, where the poor and lowly — the favorites of Saint Francis — the sick and crippled, have the place assigned to them by the laughing woman world. Yes, that’s where the Mother is… not at the table of the one who has enough dishes to feed many people, apart from himself and his family. And it is there, where these favourites of God stand and lie, to these fences and streets, that Saint Chajah goes with his wedding garment.
The Holy Father Francis understood the objective of God’s love and directed all his seraphic love there: to the friars minor who have existed and will exist at all times and in all places. You don’t have to be a Capuchin to do this, not even a tertiary sister; seraphic love cannot be confined within limits. And that is why the ray of love of Saint Francis of Assisi also goes with Saint Chajah and his wedding garment.
Chajah means father. The love of the Father shaped the wedding garment and sent it into the world. Every day we can receive the wedding garment, the radiant garment of grace, in Holy Communion. For does not the Father also send out the servants to invite souls to His Son’s wedding feast?
Behind Saint Chajah then, we must see not only the Love of the Father, but also the Love of the Son, Who is Himself the garment that covers our nakedness before the Father, Who is our light and our door and our way and our everything.
And behind Saint Chajah, we must also see the love of the Holy Spirit, Who is love, and Who brings that love which is proper to the seraphim, that love of which Saint Paul the Apostle says: “And though I speak with the tongues of angels… and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.”
Thus Saint Chajah stands here in the name of all the guardian angels who bring the white robe to the baptised. He stands in the name of the angels of transformation to God, who bring back the white robe. And he stands here in the Name of the Mother, the Immaculate One, who as Virgin and Mother will send us to the eternal wedding with the white robe: Herself.
Prayer: Holy, great Angel, Saint Chajah, may you also guard for me the robe that the Father’s Love has intended for me, and bring it at the right time. Amen.