Hi All,
Updates:
1. I offered Mass today for Kathy Johnson and for all of you, the parishioners.
2. I forgot to mention that I'll offer time slots for confessions of Friday ... although if Saturday would be a better option for people, just write me and let me know.
3. Tomorrow, Tuesday, at 6:30, I'm doing the Through Saintly Eyes from the facebook page on St. Louis de Montfort.
Reflection
http://www.usccb.org/bible/
The first reading today picks back up with the beginning of the account of St. Stephen, the very first martyr of the Church. The fancy term for that distinction is protomartyr. It is a very dear reading for me because it was used during Holy Hour in preparation for my ordination as a deacon. The priest giving the reflection during the Holy Hour was drawing a connection between deacons and angels, because we, the soon-to-be deacons, had our Holy Hour between the feasts of the archangels and guardian angels.
In the text, it says that All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him
and saw that his face was like the face of an angel. St. Stephen, one of the first deacons and the first martyr, had the face of an angel. Elsewhere in scripture angels are described as serving God by providing a diakonia - a deaconly service. It was so thrilling to stand on the cusp of the diaconate, with the feasts of the angels near at hand, and realize there was a close affinity between them. My first Mass as a deacon was October 2, the feast of the guardian angels.
The priest giving the reflection expounded the close connection between the angels and the promises that a man first makes when he becomes a deacon (and later remakes at his priestly ordination). They are the promises of chastity, obedience, and prayer. The angels live out the patterns of these three promises. First of all, their life is a chaste, single-hearted devotion to God. Further, their life characterized by obedience. The very name angel means messenger. They do God's bidding; they follow his will. Their obedience shapes their whole life. Finally, they are creatures of prayer. Theologians usually speak of multiple groups or choirs of angels, and, drawing on the book of revelation, teach that the highest classes of angels ceaselessly worship God. Their job is to do nothing but pray! Their single-minded, chaste obedience is not worked out in active service, but ceaseless prayer.
A deacon, and a priest as well, imitates the life of angel in these ways of chastity, obedience, and prayer in a public, fixed, and exterior way. But anybody can enter into the interior dispositions expressed thereby. Following the guidance of our guardian angels into these interior qualities, we follow a safe path of virtue. May we invoke our guardian angels to light and guard, to rule and guide our path so that in imitating their virtues, we may share in their reward.
God bless you all!
Fr. Rensch