| V. Choir | 5 July |
|---|---|
| Power of resurrection | Antony Zaccaria |
God has given three great angels the task of effecting the transformation of souls and of bringing them before the Throne of the Triune God:
The first, from the choir of Sealed Powers, carries the symbol of a falling boulder. He is Saint Ketherim, one of the seven who do violence to the soul in the love of God and for the love of God.
The second, from the choir of Lower Powers, stands today as an intercessor before God’s Throne with the mustard seed. He is Saint Najim, another of the seven who do violence to the soul in the love of God and for the love of God.
Saint Najim,
is the angel of consecration.
The third, from the choir of High Princes, carries the symbol of the shell of eternal longing for God. He is Saint Jophiel, the angel of the depths and of the tears of repentance.
They stand directly below each other in the series of choirs and yet the same task has a different meaning for each one. Saint Ketherim breaks the soul open in a storm, like a falling boulder tearing deep into the earth… and, like a boulder, he casts the light of knowledge over the soul so that it falls to its knees and believes, just as stirringly as the miracle of Pentecost made souls believe.
Saint Jophiel walks the souls in the water of grace and through the water of tears of repentance. He is the ploughman of souls. He breaks open the dark earth and lays it bare and naked before the all-merciful Lord in the Holy Sacrament of Penance. He is an angel of the Passion. Passiontide is always spring… and new life comes from the furrows that Saint Jophiel ploughs.
Saint Najim,
who carries the mustard seed, is an angel of the birth of the soul. In the harmony of the structure of all creation, he guides the soul from the eternal, primordial ground, into the temporal shell and shelters it again from the temporal shell into the eternal home. And, just as Saint Jophiel in his rank as High Prince is assigned to the Father, and Saint Ketherim as the Sealed Power to the Son, Saint Najim is assigned to the One Whom we confess in the Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life…”
Transformation always affects the whole person, and not just one of the Three Divine Persons has an interest in the transformation of the soul, no, the Triune God Himself wants this transformation and so the Father, the Son and the Spirit are also reflected in each of the three angels.
Prayer: Holy angel of love and of transformation to God, Saint Najim, protect all little children who are born today. Carry all the souls that God calls away from earth today home to the Heavenly Father’s House. Amen.