| VII. Choir | 4 July |
|---|---|
| Angel of the Church (the Priest) | Ulrich, Bertha |
He stands bound and silent, like a sacrificial victim before the Lord. And in the bound Hands of the Lord lies the unfaithful city over which He wept and said:
If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy eyes.
Luke 19:42
The great, silent angel is:
Saint Ariochim,
from the Choir of Virtues, the fourth of the twelve angels of the Church. He is the angel of priests and consecrated persons, of all those who have become the property of the Lord, and of His city, through sacramental or binding vows.
The Choir of Virtues, the highest in the Ring of the Incarnation and Redemption, comprises seven angels of the virtue of faith, seven of the virtue of hope, seven of the virtue of love and, in addition, twelve angels of the virtue of the Holy Church. Together they are thirty-three. They have legions of angels at their disposal.
The Holy Church has a number of angels in all choirs as her helpers and intercessors, starting from the ninth choir up to the angel of the Church next to Mary before God’s Throne. This should tell us that the Holy Church is firmly linked to the realm of the angels as to a great, wide fishing net in which they bring home the souls of men as God’s prey. The virtues of the Church are three and three, i.e. four times three angels. And in each of these groups of three, the first is assigned to the Father, the next to the Son and the third to the Holy Ghost.
Thus, Saint Ariochim, as the first, is assigned to God the Creator and bears the statics of being. The being here is the old Christ, the representative of Christ on earth, the priest; but the being here is also the one indissolubly bound to God as the representative of Mary, the handmaid of the Lord. He stands silently before his Lord, as the servant is silent, before the Lord calls him to speak. And here the Lord speaks through him to the man, to the priest:
“Go and come! Go out into My vineyard again and again; labour so that I may have full winepresses. Labour, even if I crush your success in the eyes of the world. You shall fill my winepress in poverty and faithfulness, in love and obedience. See the uncultivated places in my field; see the barren hearts. Take Me as Bread and take My Blood and let it flow in you and over you and all those entrusted to you. It is the pound with which you are to grow. Walk in My Footsteps; walk in the Footsteps of My Mother. I hunger and thirst and wait for you!”
Prayer: Holy One, Saint Ariochim, great angel of all priests and consecrated souls, who gives your angels as companions to the priests and consecrated ones, bind me also as a harvest offering and not as a clump of weeds. Let my heart glow and bind itself forever to my Lord and God, whom I can never leave, whom I want to belong to for all eternity. Amen.