I WAS reflecting in this column a few weeks ago on angels, and what seems to be a contemporary revival of interest in angelology, but not necessarily among Christians (7 March). Nevertheless, I wrote that, “for a Christian, angels remain, if not central, certainly crucial: they manifest themselves to mark and proclaim the key moments of the salvation story: the annunciation, the birth of Jesus, and his resurrection.”
So, now, at Easter, we find ourselves confronted with angels and with their proclamation, with the news that they bring; for the word angel, of course, means messenger. But, in fact, before they proclaim their message — their evangel, literally “good news” — they almost always begin with a reassurance: “Fear not”; “Do not be afraid”; or, so pithily in Latin, Noli timere.
Why? Because the sudden appearance of the supernatural, especially of the supernaturally holy, quite rightly inspires a kind of awe and dread. So it was for Isaiah: when he had his vision of heaven, he cried “Woe is me! . . . for I am a man of unclean lips,” and an angel had to bring an ember from the holy fire to purify him, so that he felt able to bear the divine and the angelic presence.
But, when the angels appear at Easter, there is more to their noli timere than just “Do not dread or fear my presence as an angel”: there is a deeper evangel, deeper good news than that; for these angels are proclaiming resurrection! They proclaim the overthrow of death itself! Noli timere! Do not be afraid of death and dying — not for your loved ones, and not for yourselves.
I love the story that Michael Heaney told, at his father’s funeral, of Seamus Heaney’s last words. As he lay dying in hospital, he had just time to text two words to his wife, Marie, and the best and most concise language for that was, as Michael put it, “his beloved Latin”. So, the last two words of one of our greatest poets were Noli timere, do not be afraid, the words of the Easter angels.
All that and more was in my mind when I came to compose an Easter sonnet on Matthew 28.5: “The angel said to the women ‘Do not be afraid’. . .”:
The Angel Appears to the Women
“Noli Timere, do not be afraid!”
Always the angels speak these words to us
And we still need to hear them. For the dread
Of our mortality, the hideous
Entanglement of all our lives with death
Still hampers us and keeps our hearts from heaven.
But every angel’s an evangelist
With nothing but good news in every breath
And every breath is now the breath of heaven,
And death itself is made the catalyst
Of life eternal. Jesus Christ is risen
From death, and all of us will rise with him.
He goes ahead of us and we will see
And know him as he is, alive and free.
