Tag Archives: Eden

Archangel Uriel

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  • Mosaic of St. Uriel by James Powell and Sons, at St John’s Church, Warminster.
  • Saint Uriel (meaning ‘God is my light’ or ‘light of God’), one of four stained glass windows in the cloisters of Chester Cathedral depicting the Archangels mentioned in the Christian Bible. Uriel is often depicted holding flame or the sun.

Archangel Uriel appears in the Second Book of Esdras found in the Biblical apocrypha  in which the prophet Ezra asks God a series of questions and Uriel is sent by God to instruct him. This is one of my favorite episodes involving angels: Ezra asks Uriel to explain the visions to him and Uriel replies: “I will answer your question if you can answer mine: How much does fire weigh? How much wind can fit in a bag? Where does the day go when it is over?” Ezra cannot answer these and Uriel tells him, “If you cannot answer these questions about things you have direct experience of, how can you expect to understand the secrets of God, which you have no direct experience of?”

In Christian folktales, Uriel plays a role in the rescue of Jesus‘ cousin John the Baptist from the Massacre of the Innocents ordered by King Herod. St. Uriel carries St. John the Baptist and his mother Saint Elizabeth to join the Holy Family after their Flight into Egypt. This family reunion is depicted in Leonardo da Vinci‘s Virgin of the Rocks.

In other Christian folktales, St. Uriel stands at the Gate of Eden with a fiery sword and in the Life of Adam and Eve, Uriel is said to be one of the cherubim described in the third chapter of Genesis guarding the Tree of Life. He is also identified as one of the angels who helped bury Adam and Abel on the edge of Eden.

In British Christianity, St. Uriel is sometimes considered the Patron Saint of the Sacrament of Confirmation. The motto of Oxford University (“Dominus illuminatio mea“) is thought by some to be a variation of St. Uriel’s name in Latin.

Lent: Paradise Lost/Regained

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The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, a detail from the reliquary of St. Isidore in Leon from AD 1063 or earlier.

Lent. Both Eastern and Western Christians read the opening chapters of Genesis and commemorate the expulsion of our first parents from the Garden in the opening days of Lent. The eating of the forbidden fruit and the expulsion from the Garden is the great disruption, the disintegration of harmony between God and humanity, humans and the world, as well as between humans and other humans. We turn on each other, bickering and arguing and blaming each other and external circumstances as we try to escape the consequences of our actions and turn our backs on taking responsibility for our choices.

Lent is all about the restoration of that harmony between people, between people and the world, between people and God. We stop killing to maintain our own existence by eating the fruits and vegetables that Adam and Eve were allowed to eat in Eden; we stop eating meat or other animal products to restore the harmony we enjoyed with them in Eden. In several liturgical hymns, Adam is said to have sat weeping outside the gates of Paradise to the trees inside the Garden, “Pray for me by the music of the rustling of your leaves!” This cry underscores the interdependence of humans and the rest of creation and that creation is a living, dynamic entity itself that suffers because of the sin of humanity.

Lent is also about the restoration of harmony between people. We forgive each other. We exchange the Kiss of Peace. We put all our differences and disagreements in perspective by remembering our common mortality. We embrace one another and call even those who hate us our brothers and sisters, forgiving everything in our anticipation of the resurrection (as another liturgical hymn proclaims).

By re-establishing harmony between people, this mutual forgiveness re-establishes harmony between God and humanity as well. We cannot hope to be forgiven if we do not forgive. By owning up to what we have done and who we are and by refusing to be angry and jealous with others–which leads to the death of relationships as well as the physical death of others, including the animals and physical world around us–we begin to experience now the joy we are promised will be ours in the Resurrection.