Three Angels On Earth

I sit across from two tired angels bent like humans over stale coffee because all the wine has been withdrawn. Like them I carry the shame of a failed mission: the people long ago I was to ignite with love failed to notice even a tiny spark of divine fire. They spent their lives in useless frenzies, left me bereft. How can we celebrate when such large chunks of sadness block both view and passage? How can we throw back our eyes and peer across the heavenly spheres to glimpse the burning rays of Heaven, where the Throne of God casts its luminous shadow over legions of adoring angels? These mournful angels are blind to traces of the glittering road leading them back to Heaven. Descent seems more likely than ascent. They feel sharp pains knowing mortal creatures suffer. 'O Faith, such a thin thread to wind around mortal lives! Can we not cable their souls with a stronger sinew, something lasting like friendship, something primal like family, something fierce like love? ' So they pray like desperate humans. Soon in Heaven they will know perfect bliss, their moments of pain dissolved and forgotten. They will ascend from earth through circles of water, air, ether; through the nine Heavens, each Heaven purging more of the mortal sorrow clinging to their angelic beings, until in ecstasy they reach the Sphere of the Divine Pedestal, and soul, heart, mind fuse in perfect awareness of God's endless wonder. They will stop at the Sphere of the Divine Throne, joining all angels and saints in the pure bliss of worship, all earthly passions released.