In today’s first reading we meet Ezekiel at the beginning of his prophetic ministry. The year is 592 BC. He is one of the many inhabitants of Jerusalem taken in the first wave of the deportations to Babylon. It is by one of the rivers of Babylon that we find Ezekiel. He has been commissioned by God to be a prophet to the Israelites in captivity.
The Israelites, defiant and obstinate, will not like what he has to say.
Ezekiel will make clear that the present calamity is due to Israel’s infidelity, the temple of Jerusalem will be destroyed because it has been given over to idolatry, the glory of God will depart from the sanctuary.
Ezekiel stands to receive his prophetic commission. He stands because he had been prostrate having just received a vision of the divine: mighty cherubim whose wings sounded like many waters and the thunder of the Almighty, mysterious wheels which moved with the creatures, the firmament of heaven shining like crystal, a likeness of a throne like sapphire with one seated upon it in the likeness of a human form gleaming like bronze with an appearance like of fire.
Ezekiel tries to describe the indescribable as the images tumble over each other. He is utterly overwhelmed.
And it is an extraordinary vision, not just for the awesome images but for its location; because in the alien land of Babylon, hundreds of miles from the Temple in Jerusalem, Ezekiel - the priest - has received a vision of God. God’s presence may have departed from the Temple sanctuary, the Temple and the people may be given over to idolatry, yet God remains with his people.
The Babylonian captivity does not indicate that God’s covenant with Israel is nullified. The vision reveals that all that happens to Israel lies within God’s Power and Providence. He strikes Israel only to heal them. In time He will gather them from among the nations like a good shepherd and cleanse them from their idolatry giving them a new heart and a new spirit.
St Paul too received extraordinary revelations as he describes being “caught up into the third heaven … into Paradise “– whether in the body or out of the body he did not know, hearing things that could not, should not be uttered. He is given “a thorn in the flesh” to stop him getting proud. St Paul does not define what this is, he does not try. But like the purifying experience of the Babylonian Exile for Israel, St Paul’s suffering opens his heart to the action of God whose power is made perfect in weakness.
And yet beyond the visions and revelations of Ezekiel and St Paul something much more wondrous happened in the town of Nazareth.
There, at the Annunciation, through the whispered yes of a young girl from Galilee, the power of God and wisdom of the God, the Son of God became one of us. In obedience to Mary and St Joseph Jesus fulfils the heavenly Father’s will on earth as it is in heaven.
The one Ezekiel saw sat on a throne in the midst of fire above the heavens and mighty cherubim; the one who dwells in the third heaven… in Paradise and made St Paul hear things that could not be uttered, the transfigured one who will dazzle Peter, James and John on Mount Tabor will happily run to His home in Nazareth when the call comes for supper.
The divine mystery of this child, this young man of Nazareth was hidden from those who were familiar with Him – “This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary?”. They thought they had His measure.
Yet this same divine mystery is being played out in each one of us who have been baptised. Each of us has entered into the mystery of Jesus’ life. If we think we know each other, then today’s Gospel is a salutary warning. We see each other, live with each other, perhaps for decades, but our lives our hidden in Christ with God – hidden from others, and hidden from ourselves; in the words of the Catechism: “The hidden life of Nazareth allows everyone to enter fellowship with Jesus by the most ordinary events of daily life” (CCC 533).
Yes - externally all may be quite ordinary, yet through our baptism, the same glory of the divine majesty that Ezekiel gazed upon, the same life of the third heaven that seized St Paul, the same power of the Holy Spirit that overshadowed Mary at the Annunciation, works in the depths of our soul. We are given a new heart and a new spirit as day by day our life is brought closer to the life of heaven (cf Prayer over Offerings 14th Sunday Ordinary Time). In the words of St Benedict – one day this new life will be made manifest to ourselves and to others. We can pray for the gift to see more clearly the work of grace in those we love around us. It is when we finally accept the truth – that we are all sinners healed by the life and death of Jesus, infinitely loved by God – that we will accept and love ourselves, we will accept and love others, looking on them in love and compassion so to see the hidden work of sanctification in their souls too, perhaps then the external ordinariness of our lives will begin to shine out with the light of Tabor.