THE WORSHIP OF THE FATHER

“Day and night they never cease to sing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”” (Rev 4:8).

This is how St John describes the adoration of our Father at His heavenly throne. In the apocalyptic vision, the Apostle saw twenty-four elders and four living creatures praising the glory of God without ceasing.

All this awaits us in eternity when we have finished the “noble fight” of our earthly life. There, in eternity, we will have a full knowledge of God and join our voices to the praise of the angels and saints. It will be our joy to know our Father ever more deeply and to be certain that we will never again stray from His ways and that we can now embrace His love unreservedly. This is what God has in store for those who love Him (1 Cor 2:9). Jesus went ahead of us to prepare the dwelling place for us (Jn 14:2).

By faith we can now join our voices in eternal praise, even though we are still in this “valley of tears”. Our Father will be greatly pleased if, here and now, we give Him the same glory that we will render Him in eternity with deep joy and naturalness.

The liturgy of the Church reflects something of the splendour of heavenly worship, provided that it is not distorted by banality and false adaptation to the world. The vision of the heavenly liturgy invites us to glorify the Father already here on earth, especially through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in which the priest offers the sacrifice pleasing to the Lord, the sacrifice that brings salvation to the world.

Undoubtedly, the holy angels are present when the “Glory to God in the highest” (Lk 2:14) resounds, the same song heard by the shepherds in Bethlehem before they hurried to find the Child who had been announced to them. The angels, together with the saints, will always help us to give to our heavenly Father the glory that He deserves and that fills with joy all those who love Him.