holy, holy, holy: 1st week advent tuesday

Today our lex orandi is Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of hosts. 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.  In the past we were used to say, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might.  Now it is Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of hosts.  This is song comes from the vision of Isaiah when he saw God surrounded by throngs upon throngs of angels singing in the divine presence Holy, Holy, Holy Lord Sabaoth.  The Greek Church would call this hymn the trisagion - or the thrice holy.  The Hebrew does not have an adverb to signify a superlative.  There is no Hebrew for “very holy”.  When it says that God is “very holy” it simply repeats the holy three times - holy, holy, holy.  Daw pareho man na bala kon magsiling kita, baw ka guapa, guapa-guapa gid ya, nami-nami gid ya ukon major-major.   God is the holiest, the most holy, nothing can be more holy.

But what is holiness?  Where does it come from?  How is it bestowed and how is it earned? 

The basic meaning of holiness is separateness - ginpa-in, lain sia sang sa iban.  It refers first and foremost to the separateness of God, the otherness of God.  Kabudlay ipaathag no?  Pero kon nakalantaw kamo Narnia, si C.S. Lewis may matahom nga explanation kon sin-o ang Dios, kon ano ang pagkabalaan sang Dios sang gintawag niya si Aslan nga indi isa ka anta nga leon.  He is not a tame lion.  Diin si Aslan, where is Aslan.  He is not tame.  You cannot put God in a box as if mapasunod mo sia sa imo luyag, as if kon luyag mo nga ara sia i-switch mo lang ang switch.  Indi sia anta, isa sia ka ila ukon talunon nga leon.  Indi mo sia madakop.  Ikaw lang ang dakpon nia.  May expression kita nga nagasiling, let go, let God; let God be God.  This is what we affirm when we call God holy.   God is holy, God is totally other, God is not like us, no one can own God - wala sing may nagapanag-iya sa Dios.  Many of us think that God would dance to our music, or do our bidding.  We think we can control God.  That is why the Our Father, the best prayer ever, Jesus tells us to pray, “your will be done.”  This is our lex credendi.  This is how we see and understand God - God is holy, God is God.

Yes, God is our best friend, God is nearer to us more than we are to ourselves.  Yes, God is Father, he is sometimes even referred to as Mother, but he is also Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God sabaoth.  He is transcendent.  There are times when we lose this way of seeing God, we have lost the so called tremendum et fascinans that God is totally other.  Sa Salmo 50 nagsiling ang Dios - Ano dumdom ninyo sa akon, pareho lang sa inyo. As far is the heavens is above the earth so far are your ways above our ways.

Today we savor a typhoon.  We are afraid, all of us are afraid.  Today we savor the raw power of nature, a power created by God.  Though we pray that this will not hit us, scientist recently discovered that we need them, we need these disturbances so that the earth can maintain its present temperature.  We bow at its power, we bow also at the power that created the typhoons.  Today for our reflection besides being afraid I would like us all to be fascinated by this raw power.  Tremendum et fascinans.  As I said last Sunday in my Mass at the beginning of Advent we have lost our sense of fascination, our eye for the fantastic.  Puro na lang ordinaryo ang tanan - nothing spectacular, nothing extraordinary.  And yet Advent and Christmas are season where we celebrate the msot fascinating events in our salvation - a virgin was with child, angels singing gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo, shepherds adoring a future king, wise men from the east.  This season not content we added another fascinating creature, santa claus.  And now in our first reading  says the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb - how do you make of that?  Why would the lamb invite the wolf as a guest?  Would it serve the wolf lamb chops?  And when did the lion become a vegetarian that now it grazes grass and hay  with the cow and its calf?  Can you imagine a little child made to play at the den of the cobra?  These are all fantastic things.  It is out of this world, it is unbelievable, it is too good to be true.  And yet they are true and they will come true.  Regain this fascination in your relationship with God.  Behold his power.  God is totally other for God is Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Host, Lord God sabaoth.