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From
Vultus Christi:
The experience of the Holy either leaves one wordless or causes one
to sing, «Holy! Holy! Holy!» Revealing one’s uncleanness in the
presence of the Infinite Purity of God, it provokes a crisis of
abjection, a crisis designed by God to throw us, not into utter despair,
but into the most reckless and daring of hopes.
God himself descends into the crisis. To Isaiah he sent one of the
seraphim, «having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with
tongs from the altar» (Isaiah 6:6). The seraph touched the prophet’s
mouth, saying, «Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken
away, and your sin is forgiven» (Isaiah 6:7).
So powerfully evocative is this text, with its Eucharistic
resonances, that the Churches of both East and West have enshrined it in
their liturgies. In the traditional Roman Missal the priest prays
before the gospel:
Cleanse the heart and lips of me, God almighty, as once
thou didst cleanse the lips of the prophet Isaias with a burning coal.
So clean a thing let thy loving mercy make of me, that I bring no shame
on thy holy gospel by preaching it.
In the Byzantine liturgy, the priest, after giving the deacon to
drink of the Holy Chalice, addresses him saying, «Behold, this has
touched thy lips and shall remove thy wickedness, and purge thy sin».
The experience of the Holy is given not to annihilate, nor to cast
down, nor to condemn, nor to destroy, but to call to life, to purify,
and to raise up. Isaiah bears witness to this today. Purified by the
burning coal taken from the altar, he responds to the voice of the
Lord. «And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‹Whom shall I send and
who will go for us?› Then I said, ‹Here am I! Send me›» (Isaiah 6:8). (Read more.)
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