Angels glorify God, inspired by wisdom that communicates God-centred glorification. Saints have tended to experience angels as messengers of God but angels transcend what they do as messengers by partaking in the light and grace of unceasing glorification. Angels belong to the invisible creation which Christ unites with our visible creation in his incarnation, a union of illumination and glorification in his hallowing Name. Desert elders fulfill an angelic function when they transmit illumination and glorification to the saints, and saints enter an angelic state when they experience the grace of illumination and glorification. Angels are created beings of spiritual light partaking of the uncreated glory of God, ascribing glory to God in the sanctuary of heaven, communicating the light of glory, the Holy of Holies, to our hallowed earth. Elders are holy seers who have awakened in uncreated light to the glory of the Holy of Holies, witnesses therefore to glorification in angels and saints. Glory is not in time so does not take time to be revealed. Glory is timeless and glorification is participation in timeless glory just as angels do. Prophets are glorified seers who speak in the Name of timeless glory to awaken saints to glorification. They bear witness to what angels see without visually perceiving angels as something externally observed. All five senses partake in timeless awakening without external reification of the glorious grace which illumines them. An objectified angel, being deceptively self-centred, deceives, but seers who awaken to wisdom genuinely partake in the grace of glory.
The completeness of glory transcends spatial breadth, length, height and depth when wisdom crowns saints in hallowing light, cladding those anointed in Christ’s glory as prophets, priests and kings. These Christly functions have an angelic therefore invisible dimension which gives them a mysterious angelic energy, communicating peace. In the Orthodox Liturgy, the deacon prays that we are each granted ‘an angel of peace, a faithful guide and guardian of our souls and bodies.’ In the Eucharist, Christ gathers angels with saints when he comes into his Father’s Kingdom, welcomed with a Cherubic Hymn. Angels of awareness are angels of presence because the Name is ‘I’ awareness and ‘AM’ presence in angels, heart of their wisdom and glory. The angels are hallowing awareness unveiling hallowed presence, illumining wind and deifying fire without being reducible to temporal phenomena. There is no separation between angels but there is no confusion between them either, because the Name indwells them all, and the Day of the Name is Day One, the Day of deifying Oneness. There is no confusion or division on Day One, because ‘I AM,’ our ELOHIM, (our deified angels and saints,) ‘I AM’ is one (Deut 6:4). Christ prays that saints shall all be one as He is one with the angels, one in the wisdom of angels, one in the glory of God. Glorification is resurrection in glory and ascension through wisdom, abiding with angels in heaven where angels abide in the Name.
Desert wisdom is witness to glorification and so to angels even in an extremely secular age, which banishes angels by excluding wisdom. But poetic prophecy never completely lost touch with angels, cutting through the reifying excesses of the baroque to the wholesome light of the beauty and goodness of truth. White robes of baptism still represent the angelic estate and union with Christ is still resurrection to glory in the Holy of Holies. Saints are angels by grace when glorification hallows them as one awareness, one presence, one wisdom in glory, one glory in wisdom. The wisdom of Cherubim, Seraphim and thrones upholds dominations, virtues and powers in glory, raising principalities, archangels and angels through wisdom to the glory of the Name. The heavenly hierarchy transmits the light of the Name to all, so that all may be restored through wisdom to glory. The earthly hierarchy of apostles, prophets and elders transmits light to the saints so that they, in turn, in communion with both hierarchies, restore all glory to God. The ecclesiastical hierarchy remains an icon of this celestial hierarchy of angelic ascent in light and angelic descent glory, but neither angels nor saints worship angels or saints, because when they do, they fall from light and glory. Angels and saints are taught by the Name to ascribe all glory to God. The wisdom of angels is shared with the saints so that communion of saints in glory rejoins celestial hosts of angels in their unceasing, hallowing glorification.