Aquinas on today's Gospel

In today’s gospel (Feast of St Michael, St Gabriel and St Raphael, Archangels) Jesus says to Nathanael: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man”.

St Thomas Aquinas has some interesting observation on this text in his Commentary on St John’s Gospel.

Firstly, drawing on St John Chrysostom, he presents the text as a proof of Christ’s divinity:

the Lord wishes to prove that he is the true Son of God, and God. For the peculiar task of angels is to minister and be subject: “Bless the Lord, all of you, his angels, his ministers, who do his will” (Ps 102:20). So when you see angels minister to me, you will be certain that I am the true Son of God. “When he leads his First-Begotten into the world, he says: ‘Let all the angels of God adore him’” (Heb 1:6).

Next he asks: when was it that the prophecy was fulfilled? - when it was that the apostles actually saw the vision of the open heaven and the ascending and descending angels?

When did the apostles see this? They saw it, I say, during the passion, when an angel stood by to comfort Christ (Lk 22:13); again, at the resurrection, when the apostles found two angels who were standing over the tomb. Again, at the ascension, when the angels said to the apostles: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking up to heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11 ).

Drawing on St Augustine, St Thomas presents the foreshadowing of these words of Jesus in the vision of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis:

According to Augustine, Christ is here revealing his divinity in a beautiful way. For it is recorded that Jacob dreamed of a ladder, standing on the ground, with “the angels of God ascending and descending on it” (Gn 28:16). Then Jacob arose and poured oil on a stone and said, “Truly, the Lord is in this place” (Gn 28:16).

Now that stone is Christ, whom the builders rejected; and the invisible oil of the Holy Spirit was poured on him. He is set up as a pillar, because he was to be the foundation of the Church: “No one can lay another foundation except that which has been laid” (1 Cor 3:11). The angels are ascending and descending inasmuch as they are ministering and serving before him.

Finally, he is unable to resist as comparison between angels and Dominicans (which is what he means by “preachers” preachers):

Or, the angels are, according to Augustine, the preachers of Christ: “Go, swift angels, to a nation rent and torn to pieces,” as it says in Isaiah (18:2). They ascend through contemplation, just as Paul had ascended even to the third heaven (2 Cor 12:2); and they descend by instructing their neighbor.

“On the Son of Man”, i.e., for the honor of Christ, because “what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:5). In order that they might ascend and descend, the heavens were opened, because heavenly graces must be given to preachers if they are to ascend and descend. “The heavens broke at the presence of God” (Ps 67:9); “1 saw the heavens open” (Rv 4:1 )