| III. Choir | 14 July |
|---|---|
| “Devotion to God” | St Bonaventure |
Man’s response to God’s call of love and grace comes up from the depths. God calls the soul, He awakens His echo in it. He fills her heart with longing, He takes her as His own.
Man can offer God nothing other than his miserable heart, his broken, helpless being.
But God – this Strong, Holy, Immortal God – also accepts this poor gift. Yes, from the depths of the earth, and truly in the folly of the Cross, He builds Himself a Throne out of this poor heart… and leaning on this Throne, the Son worships the Father.
He is a Throne with the broad side downwards and the top upwards, and, as incomprehensible as it sounds, he is an angel. An angel gathers all the gifts offered to God, all God’s property, and takes them on his shoulders and offers them to God.
What are all the princes of the earth compared to this gigantic angel who can carry worlds on his back with ease?
Saint Mephraim,
“The gift offered to God” is the name of this Throne. The Thrones are three and seven and again three and seven, and between them stands one: Saint Aralim Enneth, the tip of the scales. In Saint Aralim Enneth the creature first encounters the incomprehensibility of God, for this weakest of all Thrones bears the will of God over the entire kingdom of Lucifer. To his left are ten Thrones and to his right are another ten.
The first three and seven are the Throne of God above all creation and the bearers of God’s will towards creation. The second three and seven thrones are the Throne of God in creation and the form that has already become and is now offered to God.
Saint Mephraim is a Throne of the second seven. He carries the gift offered to God, which has become God’s property. He uses it to build a Throne from earth to Heaven for the Saviour Jesus Christ.
The fullness of eternal life, which Saint Mephraim receives from the Angel of Life, he bundles into his own: the gift offered to God. He thus makes them full of eternal life and angel-like… eternally valuable. But he also lets the stream of life flow down upon himself to the Princes, who are also angels of life, and especially to the Silent Princes, only to a lesser degree. These are the mediators of the eternal and infinitely flowing life to God’s property in creation and the Guardian Angels of the Holy Church.
Prayer: God, in Your infinite Love, You have chosen such a great angel, Saint Mephraim, to gather Your property on earth and to bring it to You on his strong arms. Most Gracious Lord, let me also be counted among your possessions! Let all my being and doing become a gift pleasing to You, through which You may be praised for ever and ever. Amen.