Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

GENERALLY SPEAKING...

As I spend my final week at home in preparation for seminary, this hymn haunts me in a terrifyingly beautiful way. The music that's been adapted to fit the words that aided in the St. James liturgy sets the perfect mood of God's terrible and awesome power as something to be feared and revered. It captures, too, God's love and mercy that we see in the Incarnation of Christ.

VERSE 1

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,

and with fear and trembling stand.

Ponder nothing earthly minded,

for with blessing in His hand,

Christ, our God, to earth descendeth

our full homage to demand.

We are to be humbled. The same God that proclaimed to Moses "no man sees Me and still lives." has come to dwell among us. In our hearts and in our souls -- in His creation. Most bluntly, God appears to us in the Eucharist. He remains the same all powerful God within the Sacrament as He was to David, Jacob, and Abraham. When I visited the Basilica in St. Louis this summer I was hit with fear and trembling. Everything about that building gave me specific direction to the Trinity and the Holy Kingdom of Heaven. I was rendered speechless and was left to fast from noise. Beyond sounds, an interior silence was maintained, leaving an imprint in my soul that I can still feel. The first and third lines in this stanza relate in that way.

VERSE 2

King of kings, yet born of Mary,

As of old, on earth He stood.

Lord of lords, in human vesture

In the Body and the Blood.

He will give to all the faithful

His own Self for Heavenly Food.

Again reference to the consistency of God. His covenant with Abraham and to all of mankind is made complete in Christ the King. Christ who shares in the same power so artfully described in the first verse, humbly obliges to take the form of man in the Incarnation. What's more -- Jesus, though fully God, casts aside His pride and allows Himself to become our "Bread come down from Heaven," in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Thus defining the Eucharist as a physical form of Holy God and absolute Truth. All this for the sake of our salvation.

VERSE 3

Rank on rank the Host of Heaven

Spreads its vanguard on the way,

As the Light of light descendeth

From the realms of Endless day,

That the powers of hell may vanish

As the darkness clears away.

While the first two verses give me hope for eternity and an eye that looks towards the end, this verse gives me hope for NOW. The forefront of Heaven's army -- rank on rank -- follows Jesus Christ to earth. Spiritual warfare is constant in our world and while our culture drips with Satan's influence, the Truth exists for our embrace! Angels fight for us! They are our guardians in a time of cynicism, carelessness, and pride. For all our faults and failings Angels fight to take the blindfold off our eyes to see Truth as it really is. As we start to perceive the reality of Truth, darkness slips back into the abyss and Heaven's light shines through!

VERSE 4

At His feet the six winged seraph,

Cherubim with sleepless eye,

Veil their faces in the Presence,

As with ceaseless voice they cry:

Alleluia, Alleluia,

Alleluia Lord most high.

Finally, even the Angels (who outrank mankind in spiritual hierarchy) cannot even bare to look upon their Creator. They hind their faces yet feel no remorse, they feel JOY at being in the presence of the Lord. ALLELUIA is a cry for elation! They cannot contain themselves, and for the entirety of eternity they cry! Be that singing or weeping, they are overwhelmed by the beauty of God.

IN CONCLUSION...

I wonder how aware I am of God's existence on a basic level everyday. I pray, I work, I live with God as an assumption. It's almost an afterthought. However this simple fact is what all of my faith relies upon. My trust in God, my vocation, my ministry, my whole person is contingent upon God's existence which is so eloquently verbalized for us in this hymn. Perhaps I should take the first verse as a command with great priority. I will keep the silence established in my soul and wait for the Lord. Our God is not dead...He's alive! And through His Resurrection He opened wide the entrance to the joy that the angels of the fourth verse experience. If I sit and ponder Him, I will be prepared to give the homage He demands. When Jesus comes to claim His own, you can count on me to sing this song.