The Son has the unceasing praise of angels, Angels: Day 059

The Son has the unceasing praise of angels

Christ didn’t perform miracles because he wanted to show off, says St. Hilary of Poitiers. After all, he has all the hosts of heaven praising him without ceas– ing. No, his miracles were performed so that we might believe and be saved.

There is no deception in these miracles of God, no subtle pretense to please or to deceive. These works of the Son of God were not done from any desire to show off. He whom countless angels serve never deluded us. What did we have that he could need, when everything we have was created through him? Did he need to have praise from us who are first heavy with sleep, and then sated with lust, and then loaded with the guilt of riot and bloodshed, and then drunk from reveling—he whom Archangels, and Dominions, and Principalities, and Powers, without sleeping or stopping or sinning, praise in Heaven with everlasting and unwearied voice?

They praise him because he, the Image of the Invisible God, created all their host in himself, made the worlds, established the heavens, appointed the stars, fixed the earth, laid the foundations of the deep; because in a later time he was born, he conquered death, broke the gates of hell, won for himself a people to be his fellow-heirs, lifted flesh from corruption up to the glory of eternity.

There was nothing, then, that he might gain from us that could induce him to take on the splendor of these mysterious and inexplicable works, as though he needed our praise. But God foresaw how human sin and folly would be misled, and knew that disbelief would dare to pass its judgment even on the things of God, and therefore he vanquished presumption by tokens of his power that must give pause to our boldest. –St. Hilary of Poitiers, On the Holy Trinity, 3.7

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

Christ does not need the prayers of human beings or angels, yet he calls us together to praise him. Do I take delight in the liturgical worship I share with the Church on Earth and the angels in Heaven?

CLOSING PRAYER

In the company of angels, I praise the Lord. I give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in a congregation that is both earthly and heavenly.

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