lex orandi, lex credendi: 26th week tuesday 2012 II

Today we celebrate the feast of our guardian angels.  In our gospel today, the disciples were warned not to despise children, for as Jesus said, their angels in heaven always look upon the face of the father.  It is an assertion by Jesus himself that angels are watching us, protecting us, and offering prayers to the Father for each one of us.  At times they are depicted as messengers from God.  That is why angels or aggelos in Greek means a messenger, a messenger from God.  Other times, however, they are also depicted to be praying for us to the Father, for as the bible says, they stand in God’s presence day and night.

People nowadays do not believe anymore in angels and as a consequence few believe in real demons or devils.  For some these are just figments of our imagination.  For others these are just old tales, totally fantastic in the eyes of science.  But we should remember that there are things in this world which are beyond our comprehension, sophisticated we might have become already.  And I believe in angels - I believe that there is a power for the good which is beyond my own abilities and capacities.  There is a power for the good without which I can never become holy or good.  I could not do it on my own,  that is why I have a guardian angel, to guard me, to guide me, to encourage me, to pray for me and to lead me to the Father. 

But remember there is also the power of evil lurking in the shadows.  Devils are real as angels are.  They lead us to do evil, they tempt us and lead us to sin.  The reality is this - left on our own we cannot be truly good, and left on our own we cannot be truly evil either.  That is why we sometimes say how can this person be so good; and also we sometimes say how can this person be so vile and evil?  There are powers beyond us that seek dominance and control in our lives. 

We believe in angels.  In fact every time we come to mass we are already practicing the song which we will sing with the angels in heaven when we die.  So if you intend to go to heaven, you should already learn the song, “holy, holy holy, Lord God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest.”  This is the song of the angels which we find in the book of the prophet Isaiah which he himself saw and heard when he was given a glimpse of the glory of heaven.  We believe in angels and when we die we will join them before the throne of God singing the hymn which we call the sanctus or the trisagion.  We believe in angels because our liturgy, our worship expresses our belief in angels.

And this is what I want to emphasize in our study of the liturgy of the mass -lex orandi, lex credendi - the rule of praying is the rule of believing, the way we pray expresses what we believe.  Our worship expresses our faith.  Our faith is expressed in our worship.

Do you know that the books we used in our hiligaynon masses have to be approved by Rome, have to be corrected by Rome?  Aber sa sakto mo nga paminsaron sin-o didto sa Roma ang nakahibalo mag-ilonggo, ukon sin-o ang didto sa Roma nga mas maayo pa mag-ilonggo sang sa aton.  And yet we have to submit it to Rome for approval.  Why?  Because lex orandi lex credendi - does this translation express accurately our faith?  Kon dapat mo amligan ang pagtuo dapat mo gid amligan ang pangamuyo nga nagapahayag sinang aton pagtuo.  In the coming days we will try to reflect on the parts of the liturgy as expressions of what we believe, expressions of our faith.  But let me just end this reflection with an example.

In our prayers in the liturgy, our prayers are always addressed to the Father, very seldom is it addressed to the Son, never is our prayers addressed to the Holy Spirit and never, never is it addressed to Mary and the Saints.  Sa mga novenas puede - O mother of perpetual help your children call on you - puede.  But not in the liturgy, because it expresses our belief - all prayers of honor, worship, contrition and petition are addressed to the Father, this is done through the mediation of the Son, through the Holy Spirit who prays in us.  Ginapangamuyo namon ini sa Imo (Father) paagi kay Kristo imo anak kag amon Ginoo, sa kaisahan sang espiritu Santo, Dios sa tanan nga mga tuig sang mga katuigan.  This is our faith:  the object of our worship, the goal of our journey is the Father and we can only come to him through the Son, and we can only do so in the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.  Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.