St. Michael's Lent 2026 - Reading #24 - Worship
Reading
Between God and miserable mortals stand two kinds of mediators — one who separates, one who reconciles.
Augustine sets them side by side: "There is, then, a wicked mediator, who separates friends, and a good Mediator, who reconciles enemies. And those who separate are numerous, because the multitude of the blessed are blessed only by their participation in the one God; of which participation the evil angels being deprived, they are wretched, and interpose to hinder rather than to help to this blessedness, and by their very number prevent us from reaching that one beatific good, to obtain which we need not many but one Mediator, the uncreated Word of God, by whom all things were made, and in partaking of whom we are blessed."
Not a ladder of go-betweens — only one.
He clarifies, "I do not say that He is Mediator because He is the Word, for as the Word He is supremely blessed and supremely immortal, and therefore far from miserable mortals; but He is Mediator as He is man, for by His humanity He shows us that, in order to obtain that blessed and beatific good, we need not seek other mediators to lead us through the successive steps of this attainment, but that the blessed and beatific God, having Himself become a partaker of our humanity, has afforded us ready access to the participation of His divinity. For in delivering us from our mortality and misery, He does not lead us to the immortal and blessed angels, so that we should become immortal and blessed by participating in their nature, but He leads us straight to that Trinity, by participating in which the angels themselves are blessed. Therefore, when He chose to be in the form of a servant, and lower than the angels, that He might be our Mediator, He remained higher than the angels, in the form of God,--Himself at once the way of life on earth and life itself in heaven."
True worship rests on that ready access.
Reflection
Ready access. Sit with those two words. Every religion of human manufacture is a system of managed access — rites, brokers, gatekeepers, favors. The Gospel's scandal is a torn veil: one Mediator, and He has made the approach ready for tax collectors, fishermen, and tired fathers who fall asleep during their own night prayers.
This matters for how you carry your role. You lead your household's prayer, but you are not its mediator; do not let the priesthood of the home swell into the illusion that your family reaches God through your worthiness. You are a fellow beggar showing the others where the door is — Himself at once the way of life on earth and life itself in heaven.
Walk your children to that door daily. Then step through it beside them.