The marriage of Christ and the Church

Treasures of Our Faith with Deacon Richard Vehige

On Saturday in the week after Epiphany to the Baptism of the Lord, our Church invites us to first read and reflect on a passage from the book of the prophet Isaiah (66:10-14, 18-23) entitled “Salvation for all people”. Our treasure, which follows, is from a sermon by Faustus of Riez, bishop.

Saint Faustus was born in Britian between 400 and 410. In his youth he was devoted to the study of elocution and Christian philosophy. He is thought by some to have been a lawyer but owing to the influence of his mother, famed for her sanctity, he abandoned secular pursuits as a young man and entered the monastery of Lerins. Here he was soon ordained to the priesthood and after about eight years, because of his extraordinary piety was chosen in 432 to be head of the monastery, in succession to Maximus who had become Bishop of Riez. His career as abbot lasted about twenty or twenty-five years during which he attained a high reputation for his wonderful gifts as an extempore preacher and for his stern asceticism. After the death of Maximus, Saint Faustus then became Bishop of Riez. He died in 490.

Isaiah, one of the greatest of the prophets, appeared at a critical moment in Israel’s history. The Northern Kingdom collapsed, under the hammerlike blows of Assyria, in 722/721 B.C., and in 701 Jerusalem itself saw the army of Sennacherib drawn up before its walls. In the year that Uzziah, king of Judah, died, Isaiah received his call to the prophetic office in the Temple of Jerusalem. Close attention should be given to chapter six, where this divine summons to be the ambassador of the Most High is circumstantially described.

The vision of the Lord enthroned in glory stamps an indelible character on Isaiah’s ministry and provides a key to the understanding of his message. The majesty, holiness and glory of the Lord took possession of his spirit and, at the same time, he gained a new awareness of human pettiness and sinfulness. The enormous abyss between God’s sovereign holiness and human sinfulness overwhelmed the prophet. Only the purifying coal of the seraphim could cleanse his lips and prepare him for acceptance of the call: “Here I am, send me!”

The ministry of Isaiah extended from the death of Uzziah in 742 B.C. to Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C., and it may have continued even longer, until after the death of Hezekiah in 687 B.C. Later legend (the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah) claims that Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, executed Isaiah by having him sawed in two. During this long ministry, the prophet returned again and again to the same themes, and there are indications that he may have sometimes re-edited his older prophecies to fit new occasions.