When St. Gabriel appeared to a humble handmaid, he became the first evangelist. Through the meeting of the archangel with this woman of faith, heaven evangelizes earth. Sent from above, the heavenly power makes known a truth that has humbled all of heaven, and the humility of this virgin welcomes it in faith. He does not come to overwhelm, frighten or oppress this creature full of grace. He comes with a greeting and a word of courage to this Daughter of Zion. He makes known what her intelligence could not fathom. Divine promises are fulfilled in an unanticipated way. The unimaginable message surpasses every hope. By the ministry of an angel, the Word is conceived first in the human heart, but then in the womb – and through this heart, every heart has new hope, and through this womb, all wombs made sacred.
https://avila-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Avila-Institute-logo-1.png00Anthony Lilleshttps://avila-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Avila-Institute-logo-1.pngAnthony Lilles2018-12-18 19:49:002024-03-30 13:13:01Gabriel - The Angel of Advent
In the battles and challenges of this life, we have an army of holy angels on our side. Working in invisible and spiritual ways, they stand with us against everything that would threaten our dignity or undermined our integrity. Because they have been sent by God Himself, they rejoice in this great project — safeguarding, guiding, encouraging and sometimes warning us – just when we need them to be close.
What an awesome gift they are to us! Their presence with us speaks to the greatness of our vocation as well as the great battle that we fight. Each soul is precious to the hosts of heaven — for the hosts of heaven have contemplated how that soul is precious in the eyes of God. They have seen the Divine Plan and they yearn that this plan might be realized for each of us.
The drama of God’s love and human freedom plays out against a story that preceded this present world and that will last long after it has past away. Angels help us hold on to this perspective so that we do not allow ourselves to be subject to the tyranny of urgent circumstance and emotional frenzy. Their spiritual presence creates space in the visible world in which we thrive.
In Christ, good has triumphed over evil. If diabolical intelligences seem to have dominion in the chaos and confusion of this world and its politics, it is only an appearance. For indeed, twice the myriads of angels serve the living God — and the Son of the Living God leads them to bring order and peace in all those hearts where the love of the Father is most needed. Who can stand against our God and His Heavenly Hosts?
https://avila-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Avila-Institute-logo-1.png00Anthony Lilleshttps://avila-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Avila-Institute-logo-1.pngAnthony Lilles2018-09-29 17:17:002024-03-30 13:13:01Angels on Our Side
Every seven years, the Church in Spain celebrates a Teresian Holy Year, and the Avila Institute of Spiritual Formation organized a journey to participate with about forty pilgrims last November. In nine days, over Thanksgiving week, we visited many of the convents that Mother Teresa founded. On one of the days of our pilgrimage we set out for Burgos.
On the way, we stopped for Mass in the monastery in Palencia – and the sisters graciously provided us with cookies and coffee for breakfast afterward. Their joy was so contagious – we in the small parlor and they behind the grill, physically jumping up and down with glee at seeing us. Though most of us spoke little Spanish and they little English, there was a bond that we shared together… we, like them, though only laity managing our way in the world, had been touched by the spiritual doctrine of their Foundress — her teachings on prayer and on faithfulness. With this foretaste of heaven, we climbed back on the bus and road a couple more hours to Burgos, to visit, among other sacred places, its beautiful Cathedral.
After our arrival, we had a few minutes for a bathroom break and I was a little distracted by a hot chocolate shop nearby. I had been at this very spot once with another group of pilgrims – a memory of fun and laughter that I wanted to re-live. But like most beautiful moments of grace… they never come the same way twice. Indeed, as I approach the shop to get my hot cocoa, an upset pilgrim approached me for help.
With a sense of urgency in her voice, she explained that there was a man dead in the public bathroom. No one knew what to do. I am embarrassed to admit that I was annoyed at first — this was not according to plan. All I wanted was to indulge an old memory. This was the opposite of that.
Reluctantly, I let the pilgrim lead me to a steal public restroom with automatic doors and locks. Lying on the floor was a young man. I asked another pilgrim to fetch our doctor and asked the lady at the chocolate shop to call an ambulance. Then while I waited, I heard the voice of my own conscience – it was not enough to ask others, I needed to do something myself. But I did not want to… I was afraid of what I might find. Prodded by an insistent pilgrim, I finally succumbed to that still small voice in my heart. What I experienced was a powerful grace that has stayed with me ever since. As I prayed over the few minutes of my visit, the words of a poem emerged and it is these that I would like to share with you now:
On Him, the Door I Shut
(A Pilgrim on the Streets of Burgos)
A break for toilette, for chocolate, for “Time was tight”
In Cathedral’s shadow, I fell upon that victim’s plight
There, my selfishness recoiled before Mercy’s might.
On the ground, a naked stranger lays fetal
skin white, floor plastic and cold metal
blood bright, feces dark, under heroine lethal
Pilgrims, helpful, call aghast
Shopkeeper annoyed, excited, on phone harassed
Onlookers, indifferent, quickly passed
That sepulcher, there both shame and glory meet –
Heart lost in revulsion, righteous excuse, readied retreat
At that restroom door, prayer and pilgrims but stayed my feet
Like a corpse it lay, a youth, the image of my son
In stench fluid’s filth, needle, darkness, spoon
No pulse, but warm, with opened wound
To our Lord, heartfelt but pathetic prayer
Then he twitched, stirred, and pulsed bare-
Ly, boom, boom, boom, as I exit to siren’s blare
Steal on steal and electric lock
Anxious tolls of ancient clock
In Burgos as in L.A., my thoughts just empty talk
On Him, the door I shut,
whose silent glories cut
short, my cold indifference.
For me, the distress of an unknown stranger became a moment of grace. In a single moment, I saw this young person as my son and at the same time as my Lord. In that encounter, I was put face to face with my mediocrity and the moral standard of the Gospel of Christ. For a moment, I glimpsed the mystery of the Father’s love of His Son in the Holy Sepulcher, and God’s desire to raise each of us up out of the filth of our lives. I tasted, for an instant, a love that is stronger than death and the mercy that circumscribes our misery. Such moments ought to live in the heart of apostolic activity, and they ought to feed our prayer. Otherwise, we remain but prisoners of the projects of our self-indulgent piety — save for the fact that the Lord never fails to come to us, even though in disguise.
https://avila-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Avila-Institute-logo-1.png00Anthony Lilleshttps://avila-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Avila-Institute-logo-1.pngAnthony Lilles2017-12-07 18:54:002024-03-30 13:13:01Advent of that Mysterious Joy
After the death of a leper king who brought great financial and technological security to Jerusalem, Isaiah receives a vision while he is worshipping in the temple. Attitudes toward the successful but unclean king must have been mixed. Just as political powers are inclined to do in our times, Uzziah in fact had attempted to abuse the sacred right to right worship enjoyed by the People of God inorder to expand his own political power over the lives of his subjects. Whatever his original intentions were when he first approached God, the absolute sovereign splendor the future prophet saw over and against the passing of worldly power would help prepare for the most definitive moment of human history.
It was a vision of great and powerful spiritual creatures ministering before the overwhelming majesty of God enthroned and clothed in overflowing glory. The awe inspiring celestial hymn he heard echoing in the temple around this scene celebrates the great truth King Uzziah himself had forgotten in his service to Judah. Namely, true security and the most important kind of prosperity are not principally the fruit of political cleverness or skillful ingenuity. The real source of these blessings is God Himself to whom alone right worship is owed, and though this divine rule is hidden from the proud, those who glimpse this glory are purified and sent to declare what they see.
There are countless kinds of angels of which seraphim constitute a certain rank. The wings of an angel signify its power and the six wings of a seraph denote the greatest of all created powers. Whatever else they are (and very little is known about them), Isaiah presents us with wonder filled, reverent, powerful and jubilant creatures who never break their ready vigilance in service to the Lord. They are powerful and wise enough to adore the holiness of God as more holy than any holiness that can be understood. The triple sanctus they raise in their communion of endless praise is superlative for the greatest awe and wonder. It is a awe and wonder caught up in unimaginable love.
At the same time, they are ready and able to remedy sinful man’s complaint of unworthiness. They do not hesitate to fly to man to heal and encourage him. They do this not by sheltering the sinful from the piercing truth that must be faced, but instead with great power they render humble humanity vulnerable to the saving Presence whom they attend. Employing Love’s sacred fire as if our frail lips were a kind of incense, Isaiah saw for Himself how they help us open our mouths so that we too might declare the Lord’s praise with them before the world.
Just as in the shadow of heavenly worship Isaiah tasted the mercy of God, God’s mercy baptized Peter in the shadow of Christ. Peter did not see a celestial vision, but on the contrary he saw the Word made flesh. He did not witness the power of mighty creatures and the overflowing raiment veiling God’s glory enthroned, but instead Peter stood vulnerable and afraid before the Image of the Invisible God. The voice that gave Peter courage was not that of seraphim, but rather he found heart only in the human speech of God Himself, “Do not be afraid.”
The courage Peter found by the shore of a lake, the whole Church finds before the table of the Lord. At every Mass, we Christians are meant to stand together in bold vulnerability before the power of God revealed in Christ. We stand has did Isaiah, Peter and Paul before us. As hard as the truth of God’s love is to accept and live with, we take heart because Christ commands us to.
Just before the Eucharistic prayer, the whole assembly joins the hymn of the Seraphim that once enchanted Isaiah. We have been made able to do this not only through that hidden ministry angels, but by that of Christ Himself whose perfect offering purifies our lips. We do not hope merely for that tiny glimpse into the shadows of divine majesty Isaiah once beheld. Instead, we boldly dare to approach the very altar of God and partake of His mystical banquet with the hope that we might one day see Him as He is. We even believe Christ is at work in us at this very moment so that we will be made like Him. If before this saving mystery, Peter should complain about his unworthiness, we should not be discouraged if we must suffer displeasure over the lack of love God’s holiness reveals in us. God waits for us with eager longing to offer Him our misery just as Peter learned to do.
Yet it is perilous if out of cowardice we deny our confession of the Son of God or remain silent about this great mercy. The world needs the Gospel of Christ today just as much as Judah needed a word of hope in the difficult times into which Isaiah was sent. If Isaiah, who did not fully know the pledge of future glory we now enjoy, did not fear to announce the tidings of God to a people lost in darkness, we who have shared in the cup of salvation must always be ready to give a reason for the hope we have inside.
When St. Gabriel appeared to a humble handmaid, he became the first evangelist. Through the meeting of the archangel with this woman of faith, heaven evangelizes earth. Sent from above, the heavenly power makes known a truth that has humbled all of heaven, and the humility of this virgin welcomes it in faith. He does not come to overwhelm, frighten or oppress this creature full of grace. He comes with a greeting and a word of courage to this Daughter of Zion. He makes known what her intelligence could not fathom. Divine promises are fulfilled in an unanticipated way. The unimaginable message surpasses every hope. By the ministry of an angel, the Word is conceived first in the human heart, but then in the womb – and through this heart, every heart has new hope, and through this womb, all wombs made sacred.
