Noise of Wings (II) (Midweek Message)

Petrus Christus, Annunciation, 1452

Noise of Wings (II)

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

December 6, 2017 The Feast of St. Nicholas of Myra

In thinking recently of angels and the “noise of wings,” I came across the following blessing, by writer on Celtic spirituality and for a time catholic priest John O’Donohue just before his death in 2008:

“A Blessing of Angels”

May the Angels in their beauty bless you.
May they turn toward you streams of blessing.

May the Angel of Awakening stir your heart
To come alive to the eternal within you,
To all the invitations that quietly surround you.

May the Angel of Healing turn your wounds
Into sources of refreshment.

May the Angel of the Imagination enable you
To stand on the true thresholds,
At ease with your ambivalence
And drawn in new direction
Through the glow of your contradictions.

May the Angel of Compassion open your eyes
To the unseen suffering around you.

May the Angel of Wildness disturb the places
Where your life is domesticated and safe,
Take you to the territories of true otherness

Where all that is awkward in you
Can fall into its own rhythm.

May the Angel of Eros introduce you
To the beauty of your senses
To celebrate your inheritance
As a temple of the holy spirit.

May the Angel of Justice disturb you
To take the side of the poor and the wronged.

May the Angel of Encouragement confirm you
In worth and self-respect,
That you may live with the dignity
That presides in your soul.

May the Angel of Death arrive only
When your life is complete
And you have brought every given gift
To the threshold where its infinity can shine.

May all the Angels be your sheltering
And joyful guardians.

(John O’Donahue, Benedictus: a Book of Blessings [2007], published in the U.S. as To Bless the Space Between Us  [Doubleday: New York, 2008], pp. 33-34.)

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+ 

 Henry Ossawa Turner, Annunciation, 1898