Lectio
“And from His overruling and eternal protection we have received the support of the Apostles’ aid also, which assuredly does not cease from its operation: and the strength of the foundation, on which the whole superstructure of the Church is reared, is not weakened by the weight of the temple that rests upon it. For the solidity of that faith which was praised in the chief of the Apostles is perpetual: and as that remains which Peter believed in Christ, so that remains which Christ instituted in Peter.”
— Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church, Sermon 3
Meditatio
God has not left us alone to navigate this life, in all its sin and brokenness. God became flesh in Jesus to be with us and to open a way to the Father, so that, through Him, we may live in eternal communion with our Creator. Jesus was and is the only mediator to the Father, and because that one mediation is so full, it overflows: heaven and earth, and even the human heart, are full of the Lord’s instruments, the many forms His nearness takes for creatures who were never meant to be alone.
God’s instruments seldom arrive as we expect. Not a burning bush or a parting of the sea, but something ordinary: a friend who calls at the right moment, a line of Scripture that suddenly speaks to our heart, a stranger’s kindness, a prayer someone else said on our behalf, or a graced moment of awakening we can neither explain nor recreate. God’s help always arrives before we ask for it, and it is never earned. Looking back, we may notice that the Lord was always there, accompanying us, even when we felt alone and forsaken by Him and everyone else.
This is how the tradition has long understood the helpers God sends, beginning with the Apostles, on whom Christ built His Church and whose aid has never ceased. They are not rivals to Christ or substitutes for Him, and they do not stand between us and God, but walk with us as in His name, leading us to Him, the narrow gate, who has opened heaven to us. They are the places where His one mediation takes concrete form, so that we, who could not bear the naked immensity of God, can meet Him in a face, a touch, or a voice. The one who accompanies us amidst our struggle is not doing God’s work for Him. Rather, God is doing His own work through that person, who remains fully free and fully themselves in that work, even in their own brokenness, redeemed in Christ and animated by the Spirit.
Underneath every instrument of the Lord, whether a fellow member of the Body of Christ, a Saint in Heaven, or an angel sent to minister to us, is the One who moves it. The Holy Spirit does not need to extend Himself toward us, because He already indwells us and is closer to us than we are to ourselves. The Lord’s instruments are simply where that nearness first becomes recognizable. When we lose our voice and can no longer sing, the choir of the Lord, His angels, His Saints, and His Body here on earth, carries God’s tune for us, lifting us with its sweetness and lending us His strength to go on until we can raise our voices to sing His praises again.
Oratio
Your Heavenly Song
sing me back home
when I cannot find my way
O sweet angel choir
lift me with your heavenly song
the word of the Lord
echoing through the temple
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
His body sings His praises
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Christ died and He is risen
we stand upon this rock
true to its call throughout the ages
the gates of Hades
will not prevail against it
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
sing me back home
to Your Church, O Lord
Contemplatio
You have been carried by more hands than you could ever count, and every one of them was held by the One who is nearer to you now than your own breath. Let the faces and voices that brought you here grow quiet, and notice who has been present beneath them all along. Rest in that nearness, and consent to let Him hold you as He wills.
Related Scripture
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.”
— Ephesians 2:19-20 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Built on Solid Ground: Teresa of Ávila on Stumbling and the Foundation That Holds (Lectio Divina), which sits with the foundation that holds beneath us when we stumble, a quiet companion to the steadiness Leo the Great finds in the Church.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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