| Choir I | 29 June |
|---|---|
| “I will cast fire upon the earth” | Ss Peter and Paul |
The more the angel approaches God in his being, the more incomprehensible and inconceivable he becomes to us. When a seraph is depicted with a smiling, young man’s face, folded hands, many wings, a headband and flowing robes, it is just as clumsy as the wooden dove on a rope that is often seen dangling in the wind from the ceiling in chapels and village churches and is supposed to represent the Holy Ghost.
There is probably some truth in both primitive representations: The Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a wonderfully light dove, and the seraphim have many wings, but this touches only a very distant echo, a very faint mirror of reality. It is the outermost limit of Heaven’s loving condescension to our simple-minded eyes. Just as the Holy Ghost cannot be represented, so no one can represent the seraph as he really is, for he is the highest creaturely reflection of the Triune God.
One seraph is always three seraphim at the same time, and three seraphim are one seraph. One is completely turned towards the Father, one towards the Son, and one towards the Holy Ghost, and yet all three together are one turned towards the Triune God.
A seraph is humanly representable only when he divests himself of his power and serves as a simple guardian angel; otherwise he has no humanly representable form. He could be compared to a great lake full of liquid light or to a circling, sparkling wheel of fire.
Saint Anaritha,
the Seraph of the Spirit, whom we see today before God’s Throne, is the one through whom the transformation of man flows; he is the one who changes us so that we may have life in God and learn to love in God. His name is: “I will cast fire upon the earth, and what will I, but that it be kindled?” The fire is the God-man, Jesus Christ. The Father is the One who awakens life; the Son is the one who brings life back to God and the Holy Ghost is the one who enlightens life. To Saint Anaritha belongs that Seraph of the Father, who is the bearer of the fear of God, and that Seraph of the Son, who is known as “Jesu, the Saviour Who comes.”
The power emanating from these three seraphim could make the earth rejoice, bring it to its knees and set it on fire, if God’s inscrutable counsel had not, with a single movement of His hand, presented the free will of man as the only valid thing in the justification and homecoming of mankind. This is the humility of such angels: to remain silent, to watch silently for millennia as their Lord and God is mocked and desecrated by this free will of man!
Prayer: Lord and God! Only in our nothingness are we secure in Thee before these mighty angels whom Thou hast given us as fellow servants! Amen.