Today is the feast of St. Isaiah. Yes, that is Isaiah the Prophet. Many of you might not know that great figures of the Old Testament are considered saints by the Church, though they are not remembered at the altar for Mass.
Here is the entry about Isaiah from 9 May in the Martyrologium Romanum. Maybe one or more of you you can take a crack at it? It isn’t too difficult.
1. Commemoratio sancti Isaiae, prophetae, qui, in diebus Oziae, Iotham, Achaz et Ezechiae, regum Iudae, missus est ut populo infideli et peccatori Dominum fidelem et salvatorem revelaret, ad implementum promissionis David a Deo iuratae. Apud Iudaeos sub Manasse rege martyr occubuisse traditur.
There are quite a few interesting depictions of Isaiah and one of the most dramatic moments for the great prophet, the purification of his lips by a seraph with a burning hot coal.
Here is Marc Chagall’s rendering. Note the Cross in the background to the left.
Isaiah 6 we have the calling of the prophet. In 740 BC Isaiah had a vision of Heaven while he was in the Temple. He is terrified and says (v. 5):
“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
A seraph comes to him with a burning coal from the Temple altar and touches it to Isaiah’s mouth saying: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven” (v. 7). God then asks whom he can send as a prophet to his people and Isaiah responds: “Here I am! Send me”.
First, purification. Then, then commissioning.
During Holy Mass (Vetus Ordo) the priest reads the Gospel at the altar, because the reading is also a sacrifice. Before he reads, or the deacon sings, they says two prayers, one about purification and the other about the mission of reading:
Cleanse my heart and my lips, O almighty God, who didst cleanse the lips of the prophet Isaias with a burning coal, and vouchsafe, through Thy gracious mercy, so to purify me, that I may worthily announce Thy holy Gospel. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Give me Thy blessing, O Lord. The Lord be in my heart and on my lips, that I may worthily and in a becoming manner, proclaim His holy Gospel. Amen.
I still have that painting by Chagall in my mind’s eye, with a view of the Cross, therefore the Eucharistic Sacrifice, in the background, rather, in the future.
The altar of Sacrifice is the prime locus of the raising heavenward of the Word to the Father. Ancient Greek Fathers saw a connection between the coal of Isaiah and the Eucharist and the theme of “deification”, whereby by God’s work in us we become more like God in whose image and likeness we are made. This is what the Eucharist does when received in the state of grace. We convert normal food into what we are. The food of the Eucharist converts us more into what HE is. Appropriately, we celebrated today also the Feast of the Ascension, which reminds us that our human is seated at the right hand of the Father in an indestructible bond with the Son’s divinity. St. John Damascene wrote in An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4.13. Earlier, St. John discourses on wood and fire and charcoal. Here he is expounded on reception of the Eucharist. Note that this includes a description of Communion on the hand. HOWEVER, it also describes touching it to the eyes, etc., which indicates not so much a literal description of how Communion was received but rather a spiritualized description:
Wherefore with all fear and a pure conscience and certain faith let us draw near and it will assuredly be to us as we believe, doubting nothing. Let us pay homage to it in all purity both of soul and body: for it is twofold. Let us draw near to it with an ardent desire, and with our hands held in the form of the cross let us receive the body of the Crucified One: and let us apply our eyes and lips and brows and partake of the divine coal, in order that the fire of the longing, that is in us, with the additional heat derived from the coal may utterly consume our sins and illumine our hearts, and that we may be inflamed and deified by the participation in the divine fire. Isaiah saw the coal. But coal is not plain wood but wood united with fire: in like manner also the bread of the communion is not plain bread but bread united with divinity. But a body which is united with divinity is not one nature, but has one nature belonging to the body and another belonging to the divinity that is united to it, so that the compound is not one nature but two.
This might be a good time to remind you, before Sunday, to …
GO TO CONFESSION!
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The commemoration of Saint Isaiah, the prophet who, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, was sent to reveal to the unbelieving and sinful people the faithful and savior Lord, in fulfillment of the promise sworn to David by God. Among the Jews it is said that he fell a martyr under King Manasseh.
This is good, thank you Father.
We don’t pay enough attention to the Old Testament saints! There is so much there to observe and emulate. I try to discover the saint-day of the Old Testament saints to honor them and learn about them.
For instance, in the Book of Joshua, St. Michael is described! Who knew?
On X, formerly Twitter, a convert that I follow, made an interesting comment that as a Protestant, he did not understand the correlation of the Old and New Testaments. The Types, the prefiguration, the explanations one finds in the OT of occurrences in the NT. He now delves into the Old Testament with new eyes, helped by the Early Church Fathers and other studies. This is my tiny experience too – I’ll ask a Protestant friend if they understand that the OT is important, and they nod emphatically yes – but come to find out in conversation they are gypped of understanding the revelations described in the OT, don’t get it at all sadly.
Don’t miss out, Isaiah has so much to tell us! Read and pray.
The Munda Cor Meum is one of my two favorite prayers in the Mass. My other favorite is the Hanc Igitur, especially the line “command that we be delivered from eternal damnation.” I wonder if we could possibly be feeling the effects of having stopped praying these and other prayers of the Before Time?