Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot

Lectionary: 388

So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.

The Prophet Isaiah was understandably terrified when he beheld the Glory of God seated upon His throne of majesty under the ceiling of Jerusalem's temple. And he might have been more terrified when he realized he was the only priest among those who'd entered the chamber who saw the vision, heard the angelic song, and felt the entire building tremble around him. 

He thought as any reasonable person would that he was doomed. Moses had been told, No one sees God and lives. Even the Virgin Mary needed reassurance as Gabriel said, "Do not fear, Mary. You have found favor with God!" 

I met a young priest who was pranked by his mates with a glow-in-dark statue of the Madonna. He saw it there in the dark of his room and threw himself to the floor, praying, "Oh Lord, I hope I don't have to build a chapel on this spot!" 

Whenever the Lord appears in the Bible, he has a reason for doing so. He is sending the seer on a mission or giving a command of some sort. As the wife of Manoah told her cowering husband when they saw the LORD soar into heaven amid the flames of their sacrifice: 

“If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands! Nor would he have let us see all this, or hear what we have heard.”

The woman bore a son and named him Samson, and when the boy grew up the LORD blessed him. Judges 13:24

Isaiah was given his mission; and his initiation and vision influenced the entire Bible. He had seen that the God of Abraham and Moses is the only Lord and Creator of the universe: "I am God and there is no other!" 

The six-winged fiery (seraphic) angels as he described them shaped our image of angels; they appear in churches and bedrooms all over the world. When Saint Francis was given a vision of the living Christ Crucified it was on the wings of a seraphic Angel; and he became known as the Seraphic Saint. 

Isaiah's vision and our commission teach us a fear which innoculates us against the fear of men and women. We respect social norms insofar as they are useful, but defy them when the normal would confine the truth to acceptable, safe parameters. Knowing that we have been sent "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," we find our comfort in the hope of eternal life; and not in the assurances which this world would use to confine us. Because Jesus warned us, we are wary of society, and maintain the necessary boundaries between our faith and their assumptions. 

And we never forget the fear which initially paralyzed all the seers of the Old and New Testaments. We prefer to bow before God and beg for His mercy to consideration of what others might think.