Fr. Voigt, " Where do the eagles gather?"
Where do the
eagles gather? I was travelling home from Black Duck a couple weeks ago
and chanced upon a very informative scene. Dozens of crows were
grounded and surrounding a recently struck deer, but they were frozen in
their spot because on that deer stood one much more majestic than
themselves. It was an eagle in all its might. The eagle knows where
the dead body is and can claim it over all the others. There is a dead
body and it is the body of all society which has psychologically murdered its Master and Lord.
In times past God sent His only begotten Son that whomsoever should believe in Him would find the way to eternal life
through the Blood shed upon a Cross. When He came to the Jews the elite
intellectuals could not and would not believe in His Divinity. They
had the prophets; they had the law; yet they would not accept the testimony of the past and so they would crucify Him. In doing
so they condemned their nation to a total demolition foretold by the King of kings Himself. They would find their nation destroyed at the hands of the Romans under Vespacian. Now just as they punished themselves by their lack of faith; so too, society which was constructed upon the Christian principles now rejects the very life-blood upon which they had flourished.
The new Jerusalem was constructed on the very site of the Crucifixion of our Lord. It is the site upon which the eagles gather. The eagles represent the angels, the saints and all those who believe in the eternal love affair with the Triune God. The dead body of our Lord is the site of our death to this world and its allurements and our proclamation that heaven is the goal of our daily lives. The crows of our society stand and watch while the Christian eagles feed upon the Body and Blood of
Christ. His flesh is our food and his blood is our drink. He who eats
this bread and drinks this wine will have life eternal.
As the Jews underwent a complete disaster for rejecting their Lord and Saviour so the Christian society which has denied its Lord awaits its destruction. Will it be through the arrival of "Planet X"? Will it be through the igniting of the EMF directly above us? Will it be through a third world war which cleanses the world of three quarters of its citizens? There is a sense of foreboding in the world at large with the Moslem hoards sweeping over Europe, with violence and bloodshed erupting in our schools and colleges. Society is bleeding to death and the eagles are watching.
What to do amidst all the havoc that surrounds us? Fly like the eagles of old to the spot of salvation: Calvary. There united in the hearts of Jesus and Mary the eagles can spread their wings and fly to the kingdom that awaits those who persevere in the faith. Will you fly? Will you recognize life in the suffering and death of your Lord? The end of the temporal is near though we know not the
day nor the hour we do see the signs. Just as the fig tree bearing
leaves tells us that summer is near so the signs revealed by our Lord
told us of the end of the Jewish stronghold of Jerusalem and now of the end of the modern world. Where should the eagles land but at the very spot where salvation comes to every soul of good will? Find it and you have found life.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Richard Voigt