In the Sanctus

In the Sanctus, during the Eucharist, we exclaim these splendid words of praise:

"Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest!"

If all this is so, and I have no doubt that it is, then it means that in all things we may catch at least a glimpse – a reflective impress, if you will – of the divine glory and beauty. It means that somewhere or somehow in all things, in all of everything, the awe-full splendor of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – may be found. (Or, shall we say, it may find us!) So it is that we pick up a piece of dirt-crusted quartz and apprehend in its milky form the glory of the divine, a glory which in our sinful world is often murkily – yet truly – present. And likewise we stand upon a mountain like Old Rag Mountain in western Virginia, look west across the Shenandoah range, and contemplate the folded composition of the ridges in likeness of the way in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit “fold together” intimately and inseparably in the triune perfection of the Godhead. And if all this is so, then it means that in the handicapped person we perceive the Christ whose gait was cruelly broken by the perverseness of this hard-hammering world, and at the same time, we hope for the Christ who forever leaps and praises God like a strong deer, once shot and broken by the ruinous Hunter of this world, now raised and perfected in wholeness of limb and heart. Indeed, if the praises of the Sanctus proclaim truth, and I do not doubt that they do, then it means that we need only open our eyes and hearts to God’s being in our world, or our being in God’s being, which is glory, which is what the world is full of, so we should not miss it!