Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 388

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. 
Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.
They cried one to the other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!” 
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.


The above verses from Isaiah 6 are among the most important in all of the scriptures and the liturgical history of the Church. Isaiah's vision of God enthroned in majesty with the hovering angels crying Holy, Holy, Holy left him in a perpetual state of astonishment that shows throughout his book. Everywhere he looked from the city to the countryside, from Solomon's spectacular temple to the meanest hovel he saw the majestic presence -- the shekina -- of God.  
The Evangelists would pick up that thread as they described Jesus, despite his rather ordinary appearance in Galilee and his humiliating death in Jerusalem. They didn't see the shame; they saw the glory. 
Twelve centuries later Saint Francis saw a seraph angel bearing the living image of Jesus when he received the stigmata. The "seraphic saint's" spirituality is laced with astonishment at both the glory and the humility of God. The entire universe cannot contain God and yet he is confined within the womb of Mary, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea , and the Holy Eucharist. "Look at the humility of God!" he urged his disciples. 
The crucifix which stands above every altar in every Catholic Church replicates the "high and lofty throne" on which Isaiah saw the Lord seated. The church's apse (sanctuary) is the temple's Holy of Holies. We see our God seated on his throne as we kneel before him and we too cry out, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of Hosts. 
It is good to contemplate Isaiah's vision in this twenty-first century, when many people say they are astonished by the stars in the sky and the depths of the sea. Many are more often rapt by the wonders man has wrought. The heights and depths and breadth of our universe are amazing. As is the horror of sin. 
But more astounding is the Mercy of God which -- we hope, pray and believe -- will overcome the world and all its wretchedness. On that day every evil deed and every blessed act will be revealed and reconciled and perfected in God's presence. That amazement is beyond the wonder of the universe. It surpasses all human comprehension and many would flat out deny it. But we expect it and, with all creation, are standing tiptoe in readiness for its coming.