| IX. Choir | 12 April |
|---|---|
| Angel of widowhood | Julius, Herta |
An angel stands there wearing a blue dress, the folds of which are as dark as a summer night. Over it he wears a white cloak, falling loosely over his head like a hood. His left hand is raised as if he wanted to play an instrument, and on each of his inwardly curved fingers he has bells that he touches with the finger of his right hand. They are completely new, strange sounds—a new song—being played to the Lord. The angel is
Saint Heli.
He comes from the ninth choir and is the angel of Mary, standing next to the angel whom God raised to His Heart as the Angel of Love. He stands next to the Angel of Concealment. Saint Heli bears the widowhood of Mary. He is the angel of Mary’s loneliness after the death of Saint Joseph.
Mary’s widowhood and the abandonment imposed on Her by the Triune God are two completely different things. One is loneliness; the other is abandonment. The loneliness of Mary after the death of Saint Joseph, Her Protector, and the Head and Sustainer of the Holy Family, is, to use an analogy of the holy angels, like a bell over a wide expanse of heath, which touches the sky on all sides and over which the sound of the bell resounds, all alone. There is a great peace and holiness in Mary’s solitude: the broad swell of the Divine Peace of the Most Holy Trinity. It is being alone in the Great One that leads to complete, total oneness in eternity.
Mary’s widowhood is a sacred model for us of the solitude willed by God and embedded in God. That is why the angel carries these marvellous bells, which sound completely different from other bells; they sound as if they could no longer find an echo anywhere except in eternity, and only in God. They are full of longing, yes, but of a new, divine longing far beyond the boundaries of the earth. This is not longing which rejects the world out of resignation, suffering or ignorance, but one which takes the whole world as a sheaf. Indeed, is not every soul—that God has ploughed as a field and harvested by his love and blotted out for the world—a widow for the world, a widow who no longer knows earthly love and longing, and who remains so for eternity according to God’s will?
Prayer: O comforting angel for us men on our pilgrimage, Saint Heli, let your bells also ring the new song you play in our hearts. Let it echo the song of the bells of our dearest Mother Mary in Her solitude. In all silent hours, let it ring out beyond the borders of the earth to the One for Whose’ sake we want to bear all loneliness that we may become one with Him for all eternity. Amen.