“In Advent, as we continue to meditate on the Parousia (the magnificent Second Coming of the Lord), we do well to allow our imaginations to be engaged in contemplating the glory that awaits those who are faithful, to meditate on the joy and ecstasy of the culmination of all things!
Though we have soberly meditated on the need to be ready and on the great danger that many who are not serious may be lost, for those who ARE ready, what glories await! The great and terrible day of the Lord will indeed be great for those who have allowed the Lord to prepare them.
I was stirred this past month in reading a magnificent book by Cardinal Jean Danielou on Angelology (usually pronounced an-GELL-o-gee), the study of angels. The book is entitled The Angels and their Mission: According to the Fathers of the Church. It is must reading and very accessible—only 114 pages—but packed full of stirring and edifying accounts of the wonderful works of the angels, according to Scripture and the Fathers of the Church.
The final chapters on the eschaton (the last things) and the Parousia (the Second Coming) are particularly magnificent. I would like to distill them here, adding some material and reworking it just a bit. However, the research is that of Jean Cardinal Danielou. I hope you will be stirred with as much joy and zeal as I was in reading and preparing this material. And thus we proceed:
Perhaps as a beginning point, we may wonder what happens to the ministry of our Guardian Angel when we die. Even if our souls are in heaven, our bodies are still awaiting the resurrection. Ancient Christian tradition maintains that during this time the angels keep watch over the tombs of the saints. In the Jewish apocalyptic book The Assumption of Moses, it is said that Joshua saw Moses’ soul rising to Heaven with the angels (40:1–7). However, the Epistle of Jude also says that the Archangel Michael fiercely disputed with the devil about the body of Moses (cf Jude 1:9). Stories such as these, combined with the ancient Christian practice of frequently depicting angels in cemetery art and funeral monuments, indicate a role for the angels in guarding the bodily remains of the elect, even those sadly scattered about or buried in the depths of the sea.
Scripture is replete with descriptions of the role of angels in the great Second Coming of the Lord. In the Gospel of Matthew there is a text that may refer to 70 AD, but surely also describes the end of time:
Then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matt 24:30-31).
The first epistle to the Thessalonians also says,
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise … (1 Thess 4:16).
St Cyril goes on to describe the extraordinary magnificence that the presence of the immense multitude of angels gives to the final judgment. He considers how the great depth and breadth of the spiritual world has been invisible until now, except to the eyes of faith. But suddenly it is made manifest! He asks us to try to imagine the immense multitude of angels by considering the vast numbers of human beings who ever existed, from the time of Adam to the present day, now standing before the Lord Jesus. And then he asks us to imagine that the angels are vastly more numerous than we are. For they are the 99 sheep whereas humanity is but the one sheep! Such vast numbers can only be spoken of as myriads and myriads! Or as Daniel poetically says,
Thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took his throne. His clothing was white as snow, the hair on his head like pure wool; His throne was flames of fire, with wheels of burning fire. A river of fire surged forth, flowing from where he sat; Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him, and myriads upon myriads stood before him (Dan 7:9-10).”READ MORE:via Come Lord Jesus! A Meditation on the Stunning Glory of Being Gathered to Christ on the Last Day « Archdiocese of Washington.
meditation
All posts tagged meditation
“Modern philosophy is full of all sorts of absurd theories about the illusory nature of existence and the unreliability of everything we know to be true. But the boots on the ground, living, breathing, day to day philosophy of even the most angst-ridden German nihilist or the most wild-eyed French existentialist has to be common sense realism. Even German and French philosophers must eat, sleep and conduct themselves in civil society.
There’s great consolation in the reliability of the law of gravity and the fact that it means something specific to me or anyone else when you say dog, cat, house, person, good, true and beautiful. But the last three of those words; good, true and beautiful, and maybe even person, do enjoin some philosophical reflection. They are the basis for making sense of right and wrong, obligation, prohibition and so on. Philosophy isn’t just a waste of time.
Catholicism is deeply philosophical and also deeply mystical and of late the mysticism of the Catholic world view has been confronting me with great force, and confronting the minimalist common sense realism I had more or less taken for granted.
Our parish and a number of Catholic churches I’ve been to recently have begun saying the St. Michael prayer after Mass. It is a breathtaking departure from the modern psychological deconstruction through which I have made sense of my own mental states and those of others. Pride, envy, sloth, greed, lust, gluttony and wrath are not merely maladjustments, but rather they are the snares of a spiritual being who seeks the ruin of souls. They are our weaknesses within our wounded souls, but they are also passions from outside of us, which act upon us, against which we must not be passive, or we will be swept away.”
READ MORE via The Return of the Prayer to St. Michael – Crisis Magazine.
Although, I have been resting
In Your Most Sacred Heart,
Safe in Your holy embrace
Throughout this night,
You has been waiting for this moment,
When my eyes open,
Hoping I would look at You,
And return Your loving glance.
© 2014 Joann Nelander
By the gracious gift of God.
You, the Invited,
Receive His Peach.
Heartbeat by heartbeat,
Breath by breath,
In each instant,
His Will comes to you,
The Called,
To freely choose.
Remain His by faith.
Living in His favor,
A rain of blessing falls,
To water your being,
And penetrate the ground
On which, and in which,
You stand.
You give consent,
And desire in Love,
And as a plentiful valley,
Moment by moment.
Rooted in the holy,
Sanctified by the Sanctifier,
Life and abundance of fruit,
Are multiplied in you,
And grown up around you,
Grace upon grace,
Help, healing and holiness,
Flow in abundance.
From the springing up,
To the watering flow,
Then to rush,
As to the waiting arms a beloved,
Presuming bath and baptism,
To the in-gathering of rivers,
In consecration and convergence,
Love returns to the Ocean
Of its Source.
As a homecoming,
Meandering streams
Cut courses through Time.
The many become seas
To, at long last, mingle
In the Mighty Mind,
And Minder of our souls.
copyright 2014 Joann Nelander
For what am I thankful? How about that I am.
Yes, I am here, a creature,one among others, willed into existence by the God of All, and He constantly calls me to know Him. I am free, in other words.
Yes, I am free, free to be free of God, if I so choose.
There it is again, scary freedom, free to be ignorant of the One Who calls, the One Who Loves.
He calls through His creation, look at Me, I Am Truth. I Am Beauty. I Am Love. His call proclaims me not one among others, but His one and only. Be not only being but exceedingly blessed. Be, by faith, and “Amen”, My Son. Reign as priest,and prophet and King.
For what am I thankful? I am thankful that I am grateful. With my eyes, I have seen,and with my heart, I have said, “Amen”. I answer “Amen” with my every heartbeat, my very breath. With all the moments of my life, I call to my God, my “Amen”. I am Son, caught up in Triune Being. He wears my “Yes” as eternal glory.
He is, and I am all thanksgiving.
copyright 2014 Joann Nelander
Joann Nelander
lionessblog.com
O eyes of my soul,
Eyes of my spirit,
Eyes of my heart,
See!
See the glory revealed
In all creation.
See the Son
Hidden in the least
To the greatest.
Recognize the Christ,
Lord of all.
Lord over the earth
Lord over the sea
Lord raised above the heavens.
Enthrone Him, King,
King of your soul,
King of your spirit,
King of your heart.
As light illuminates,
See that you are a new creation.
See, in this moment,
As in the breaking of the Bread.
Copyright 2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
September 27, 1856 John Henry Newman
{285} IT is the saying of holy men that, if we wish to be perfect, we have nothing more to do than to perform the ordinary duties of the day well. A short road to perfection—short, not because easy, but because pertinent and intelligible. There are no short ways to perfection, but there are sure ones.
I think this is an instruction which may be of great practical use to persons like ourselves. It is easy to have vague ideas what perfection is, which serve well enough to talk about, when we do not intend to aim at it; but as soon as a person really desires and sets about seeking it himself, he is dissatisfied with anything but what is tangible and clear, and constitutes some sort of direction towards the practice of it.
We must bear in mind what is meant by perfection. It does not mean any extraordinary service, anything out of the way, or especially heroic—not all have the opportunity of heroic acts, of sufferings—but it means what the word perfection ordinarily means. By perfect we mean that which has no flaw in it, that which is complete, that which is consistent, that which is sound—we mean the opposite to imperfect. As we know well what imperfection in {286} religious service means, we know by the contrast what is meant by perfection.
He, then, is perfect who does the work of the day perfectly, and we need not go beyond this to seek for perfection. You need not go out of the round of the day.
I insist on this because I think it will simplify our views, and fix our exertions on a definite aim. If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first—Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.
You may be comforted by realizing that Hell is a state of being and not a place, but I for one find little comfort in being in a state of affairs where life- support, ”being”, begins and ends with God and all I’m left with of my life, is my “Hell, NO”.
Time Magazine, “The Hell You Say?” by Dr. Gregory Popcak
“Well, nothing exists without God or outside of God. When we die, we will be utterly dependent upon God for our continued existence. Being utterly dependent upon the one being you have spent your life hating, ignoring, and rejecting and simultaneously having nowhere to run, no way to hide, and no way to reject at least a minimum of his presence, represents, to my mind the fires of Hell: a constant torment of being surrounded by the flames of an all consuming love you cannot recognize, cannot accommodate to, and cannot escape.
St. Augustine was once asked what God does to the souls in hell. His reply? “He loves them.” The above represents my attempt to make sense of his reply.” Read on:Time Magazine, “The Hell You Say?”.
Kin of my heart, I come to You, the Altar.
At Your feet
I lay myself down.
Redeemer Brother, cover me
With your mantle.
Claim me as Your own.
Protect me through the night,
Wake me at dawn with a sweet caress.
Let my name be as a kiss upon Your lips.
Closer than breath,
Stronger than death,
Our hearts, now and forever, One.
© 2014 Joann Nelander
May I live with Mary in my heart this day.
May her thoughts,
And precious memories of You, dear Jesus,
Resound in my mind and fill my soul,
That even Angels in flight,
And the Triumphant in Heaven,
Stop to listen and love with me.
Amen
Joann Nelander Studio 