| IV. Choir | 18 July |
|---|---|
| Harvest angel | Frederick, Camillus de Lellis |
Again and again, the temporal world falls into ruins… be it the life of a single person (doesn’t the mother sometimes also mean the whole world for the children?), a community, a country or a time. But an angel always stands on these ruins, on this broken creation of God, whether human or ruin, and worships the Creator from here too. He is:
Saint Jesophim,
the Harvest Angel. The fourth choir of angels, the Dominions, who go out over all creation, are the angels of love. It is in this choir that Almighty God has grouped together the Sealed Angels of the End Times, as they are known to us from the Secret Revelation:
The seven who go forth to seal the churches of God;
And the three who call to judgement;
And again, the seven who are to pour out the bowls of wrath upon the earth;
And again, the three who will go out to reap.
Saint Jesophim belongs to the last of these. He stands in the middle of the three, namely between Saint Sammariel, who brings in the fruit, and Saint Agariel, who raises his hand for the great transformation.
Saint Jesophim follows Saint Sammariel, who gathers the fruit. He comes to a field that has been harvested. But aren’t we always harvesting, every evening and after every labour and after every year, not just at the end of life? And don’t we often stand on the ruins of our resolutions, our wills, our plans and our labours in the evening when we examine our conscience?
Saint Jesophim is, after all, still sealed. His power has not yet grown to such an extent that he can worship the Eternal Judge amidst the ruins of a perishing world. This angel of worship and mercy is still the angel of consolation for us, the angel of hope who gives us the courage to start anew again and again, full of faithful trust; to present our ruins to the Lord, the most gracious of all lords, who says again and again: “Behold, I make all things new!”, “Behold, I am with you!”, “Come to Me!” When we view him in this way, Saint Jesophim loses all the horrors of the End Times. He is truly an angel of love.
Thus, it is also explainable that, according to the inscrutable counsel of God, as in the folly of the Cross, he stands under Saint Schemmajim, the shining angel of bridal rejoicing, whose name means: “The union of Divine Fire with earthly water” (as a symbol of creaturely life). Saint Schemmajim holds the rainbow of peace of the blossoming world in the morning and of the setting world in the evening. Saint Jesophim stands below and leads the eternal, new life, out of the ruins back to God. The full and unconditional worship of God on our ruins also brings us the peace that the world cannot give.
Prayer: Lord and God, when we stand before the ruins of our work and lives, send us this kind angel, Saint Jesophim, to dry our tears and teach us—in the hours of abandonment—that worship which is acceptable to You and of eternal value. Amen.