I was worshiping with a Lutheran church on a festival day. The pastor finished the preface: “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify thy glorious name ever more praising thee and saying.” Suddenly the zimbelstern (a collection of small bells on an organ) began tinkling and a roll from kettle drums boomed from the balcony as we sang: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.” Did that ever give me a taste of what heaven might be like.

The Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) is based on Isaiah’s vision of the seraphim singing before the throne of the Almighty in heaven. It was used in the Jewish synagogue service and was taken over into Christian worship by the third century. It is still sung by Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and some other Protestants.

The Sanctus is the most wonderful song that Christians sing. It not only joins us with most other Christians on a Sunday, but it also unites us with the heavenly host. As Cyril of Jerusalem explained to newly Baptized Christians: “It is to mingle our voices in the hymns of the heavenly armies that we recite this doxology which descends to us from the Seraphim.”* We are singing with the angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, and the whole host of heaven.

I don’t know if we ascend to heaven or heaven comes down to us when we are singing the Sanctus, but it truly is a joy and privilege to participate in this worship.

Read Isaiah 6:1-4 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne

*Mystagogical Catechesis, V, 7.