You Will See Heaven Opened

We say it every Sunday and rarely hear ourselves say it: “maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” Then we spend the week as though the invisible half of that sentence were a pious figure of speech. The angels end up on greeting cards, and in the bedtime prayers we taught our children and quietly stopped saying ourselves. That habit tells on us. A man who can’t quite believe God has servants he can’t see usually has trouble believing God sees him, and so he prays like someone talking to a ceiling. Today’s readings take the ceiling off. Daniel, in a night vision, watches thrones set up in heaven; the Ancient of Days takes his seat; ten thousand times ten thousand stand before him; and then one like a son of man comes with the clouds to receive a kingdom that will never be destroyed. In the Gospel, Jesus looks at a skeptic from Cana who has just been caught out by a fig tree, and makes him a promise: “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

Today the Church keeps the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the three archangels Scripture calls by name. Their names are small creeds. Michael, Mikha’el (mee-khah-EL), is a question: Who is like God? Gabriel, Gavri’el (gav-ree-EL), means strength of God, and Raphael, Refa’el (reh-fah-EL), means God heals. So here is the question these readings put to you and me. If heaven stands open over Jesus Christ, why do we pray as if it were shut?

The Readings

First Reading: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14

As I looked, thrones were placed and one that was ancient of days took his seat; his raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came forth from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Gospel: John 1:47-51

Jesus saw Nathan′a-el coming to him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Nathan′a-el said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathan′a-el answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

Scriptural Analysis

Daniel 7 is the hinge of the whole book. For six chapters Daniel has interpreted other men’s dreams; now the dreams are his, and a heavenly messenger has to interpret them for him. The Navarre commentators note that this chapter closes the part of the book written in Aramaic and opens the visions Daniel receives and writes down, and that the dream falls into two scenes: four beasts rising out of the sea, then a court sitting in heaven. The beasts come first (Daniel 7:2-8), and they’re a bestiary of empire. There’s a lion with eagle’s wings, a bear with ribs in its teeth, a four-headed leopard, and a fourth thing so terrible Daniel can’t compare it to any animal at all, with iron teeth and ten horns and a little horn with a mouth “speaking great things.” Navarre reads the sea as the world of darkness and chaos, and the beasts as the empires of Babylon, the Medes, the Persians and the Greeks, with the arrogant horn standing for Antiochus IV, the Seleucid king who blasphemed God and persecuted the Jews who kept his Law.¹

Then today’s reading begins, and the camera swings up. “As I looked, thrones were placed.” Louis Hartman and Alexander Di Lella, in the Anchor Bible, explain that the thrones are for the angelic associate judges of the heavenly court, the “court” that sits in judgment in verse 10, drawing on Israel’s old picture of the Lord presiding over the council of heaven (1 Kings 22:19; Psalm 82:1). The one who takes his seat is ‘attiq yomin (at-TEEK yo-MEEN), literally “one advanced in days.” His clothing is white as snow and his hair like pure wool. His throne burns, and its wheels are fire, imagery the author owes to Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot-throne of God (Ezekiel 1:15-20). And he isn’t alone. “A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.” Daniel’s arithmetic simply gives up. Then “the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened,” the books that, Navarre says, contain all the actions of men (Malachi 3:16; Revelation 20:12).²

Those myriads are the angels, and Daniel is the one book of the Hebrew Bible in which angels are called by name. When Daniel can’t make sense of his vision, he approaches “one of those who stood there” and asks what it all means (Daniel 7:16). In the next chapter the interpreter has a name: Gabriel, sent to make Daniel understand (Daniel 8:16; 9:21). And later Daniel learns of Michael, “the great prince who has charge of your people” (Daniel 12:1; cf. 10:13, 21). Franciscan Media puts it plainly: Michael appears in Daniel’s vision as the great prince who defends Israel, and Gabriel appears there too, announcing Michael’s role in God’s plan.³ Two of today’s three archangels are standing somewhere in the crowd around that throne.

Then the second scene of today’s reading. “With the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man.” The Aramaic is bar ‘enash (bar eh-NASH), a member of the human race, and Hartman and Di Lella point out that he comes with the clouds, which sets him in the heavens over and against the beasts who crawled out of the deep. Navarre draws out the contrast: “The one ‘like a son of man’ who comes with the clouds of heaven and who, after the judgment, is given everlasting dominion over all the earth, is the very antithesis of the beasts. He has not risen from a turbulent sea like them; there is nothing ferocious about him.” God raises him up, and he shares our human condition. The angel will say the kingdom goes to “the saints of the Most High” (Daniel 7:18, 27), yet Navarre insists this figure is also an individual and a king, “an individual who represents the people,” and that in Jewish circles around the time of Christ he was already read as the Messiah. Hartman and Di Lella, who read the figure chiefly as a symbol of faithful Israel, grant the decisive point anyway: Jesus took the title from Daniel 7:13, as his answer to the high priest makes plain (Mark 14:62).⁴

That’s how the Church reads it. The Catechism says Jesus “unveiled the authentic content of his messianic kingship both in the transcendent identity of the Son of Man ‘who came down from heaven’, and in his redemptive mission as the suffering Servant,” and it cites Daniel 7:13 for the claim. When it explains what we mean by saying Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, it quotes today’s verse 14 word for word: “his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”⁵ Every Sunday, when we say “his kingdom will have no end,” we’re finishing Daniel’s sentence.

Now the Gospel, which picks up in the middle of a conversation. Philip has found Nathanael and told him they’ve found the one Moses and the prophets wrote about, “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph,” and Nathanael has answered with a small-town sneer: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:45-46). Francis Martin and William Wright note that the Lectionary gives this passage to today’s feast, and that Nathanael has traditionally been identified with the apostle Bartholomew (Luke 6:14).⁶ Philip doesn’t argue. “Come and see.”

“Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Anyone who knew Genesis would have heard what’s underneath that line. Israel was Jacob’s new name, and Jacob was the man who stole his brother’s blessing; in the Greek Old Testament, Isaac tells Esau that his brother “came with guile,” meta dolou (meh-TAH DOL-oo), the same word Jesus uses of Nathanael (Genesis 27:35). Francis Moloney points to the contrast: here is a son of Israel without the wiliness of Jacob. Saint Thomas Aquinas adds a second layer. The name Israel was taken to mean “the man who sees God,” and “because man sees God through cleanness of heart and simplicity,” Jesus calls Nathanael a true Israelite. Thomas also passes on Saint Augustine’s sharper reading. Nathanael wasn’t sinless, since no one is born without need of a physician; “he was praised by Christ because he admitted his sins.”⁷ A guileless man is a sinner who has stopped pretending.

“How do you know me?” Saint John Chrysostom, in the Catena Aurea, catches the whole exchange in one line: “He asks as man, Jesus answers as God.”⁸ “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Martin and Wright note that sitting in the shade of one’s own fig tree is a biblical picture of the peace of the messianic age (Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10). Thomas reads the tree another way, since Adam and Eve covered their sin with fig leaves: “under the shadow of sin, before you were called to grace, I saw you, with the eye of mercy.”⁹ Either way, Nathanael learns he was seen before he was found.

He breaks open: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Thomas finds three things in the confession. “Rabbi” names the fullness of Christ’s knowledge, “Son of God” the excellence of his singular grace, and “King of Israel” the greatness of his power, the king and defender Israel was waiting for. Then Thomas quotes today’s First Reading to explain it: “his power is everlasting” (Daniel 7:14). He’s already joined the two readings for us. Following Chrysostom, though, Thomas says Nathanael spoke the words Peter would later speak without yet meaning all that Peter meant, so Jesus raises him “to greater things.”¹⁰ “You shall see greater things than these.”

Then the promise, and it’s made to all of them, since the “you” of verse 51 is plural in Greek, as Martin and Wright observe. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened.” The verb is aneōgota (ah-neh-OH-go-tah), a perfect participle: heaven opened, and left standing open. Moloney gathers the places where Scripture has the heavens split, from the flood to Ezekiel’s first vision to the Jordan (Genesis 7:11; Isaiah 64:1; Ezekiel 1:1; Mark 1:10), and in every one of them it means God breaking into the human story.¹¹

“And the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” That’s Jacob’s dream at Bethel, the ladder set up on the earth with its top in heaven and the angels of God going up and down on it (Genesis 28:12). Jacob woke and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it,” and “this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17). Jesus moves the angels off the ladder and onto himself. Martin and Wright say it outright: “The incarnate Word is the new ‘house of God,’ where the glory of the Lord is present and sensible, and he is ‘the gateway to heaven’ (Gen 28:17).” Saint Augustine, in the Catena, notices what Jacob did next: he set up the stone he’d slept on and poured oil over it. “Thou seest here the anointing; see the Anointed also.” And because the angels both ascend to him and descend on him, “He is both up above and here below at the same time; above in Himself, below in His members.”¹²

Thomas asks the obvious question: when did the apostles actually see this? He explains why it matters first. “For the peculiar task of angels is to minister and be subject,” so “when you see angels minister to me, you will be certain that I am the true Son of God.” They saw it in the garden, when an angel came to strengthen him in his agony (Luke 22:43), at the empty tomb, and at the Ascension, when two men in white told them this Jesus would come again the way they’d seen him go (Acts 1:10-11). The Catechism puts it plainly: “Christ is the centre of the angelic world. They are his angels,” and “From the Incarnation to the Ascension, the life of the Word incarnate is surrounded by the adoration and service of angels.”¹³

Put the two readings side by side, and they’re one picture from two angles. Daniel sees the Son of Man come with the clouds to the Ancient of Days while the angels stand in their myriads. Jesus tells Nathanael he’ll see those same angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Daniel shows us the throne room. John shows us that the door into it has a human face, and his name is Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph, the one Nathanael doubted could be good for anything.

Daily Application

The interior movement these readings ask for is to live under an open heaven. For most of us, that starts with repenting of a quiet, practical materialism. Ask a room of Catholics whether they believe in angels and nearly every hand goes up; ask when they last thought about one, and the room goes quiet. The Catechism doesn’t leave the matter to taste: “The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls ‘angels’ is a truth of faith.” It goes further. “From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession,” and it borrows Saint Basil’s words: “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.”¹⁴ If that’s true (and it is), then you have never prayed alone for a single minute of your life.

Start where Nathanael started, under the fig tree. He was seen before he was found, and what Jesus praised in him was the absence of guile. That’s the way in. Thomas says a man sees God through cleanness of heart and simplicity, and Augustine says the guileless man is the sinner who admits it. So drop the pretense in prayer today. Tell the Lord the thing you’d rather he didn’t know, remembering that he saw it under the fig tree long before you came to him, and that he looked at it with the eye of mercy. Then take it to confession this week and say it out loud.

Next, let today’s three names teach you how to pray. Michael’s name is a question, and it’s the right one to ask whenever something in your life starts setting itself up as a god: who is like God? Pray the Prayer to Saint Michael after Mass or before you sleep; it takes 30 seconds, and it reminds you whose side wins. Gabriel carried the news to Mary, so pray the Angelus at noon and ask for ears to hear whatever God is announcing to you. Raphael walked the long road with young Tobias and brought healing to his blind father (Tobit 5-12), so name one person who is sick or on the road this week and put them in Raphael’s care by name.

Finally, notice where heaven opens most reliably. At every Mass the priest closes the Preface by joining our voices to the angels, and we sing the song Isaiah heard the seraphim sing: “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Isaiah 6:3). The Catechism says that in her liturgy “the Church joins with the angels to adore the thrice-holy God,” and in the Roman Canon she asks that God’s angel carry the offering to his altar on high.¹⁵ Jacob’s ladder stands in your parish church every Sunday. Augustine has one more reading of it: “Good preachers, however, who preach Christ, are as angels of God,” going up to God and coming down to their neighbor, the way Paul was caught up to the third heaven and still gave milk to babes (2 Corinthians 12:2; 1 Corinthians 3:2).¹⁶ That’s the shape of a Christian life for all of us, preachers or not. Go up in prayer, come down in service, and keep the Son of Man in the middle.

Franciscan Media offers a line worth keeping: “Michael protects; Gabriel announces; Raphael guides.” And it closes its reflection with a sentence meant for people like us: “We cannot dismiss angels too lightly.”¹⁷ Nathanael went from a sneer about Nazareth to the promise of an open heaven in the space of one conversation, because he let himself be seen. So let yourself be seen today. Heaven is standing open over the Son of Man, and he promised you’d see it.

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Notes

1. ↑ The Navarre Bible, Old Testament, commentary on Daniel, by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre (Dublin: Four Courts Press; New York: Scepter Publishers, 2005), 840-842.
2. ↑ Louis F. Hartman and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel, Anchor Bible 23 (Doubleday, 1978), 206, 217-218; Navarre Bible, commentary on Daniel, 843.
3. ↑ “Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael,” Saint of the Day, Franciscan Media, accessed September 28, 2026, franciscanmedia.org.
4. ↑ Hartman and Di Lella, Book of Daniel, 206, 218-219; Navarre Bible, commentary on Daniel, 843.
5. ↑ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), nos. 440, 664.
6. ↑ Francis Martin and William M. Wright IV, The Gospel of John, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), 50.
7. ↑ Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John, Sacra Pagina 4 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998), 56, 61; Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 1-8, trans. Fabian R. Larcher, OP (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2013), C. 1, L. 16, nos. 322-323.
8. ↑ Saint John Chrysostom, Homily 20 on John, quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers, vol. 4, St. John (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1845), on John 1:47-51.
9. ↑ Martin and Wright, Gospel of John, 51; Aquinas, Commentary on John, C. 1, L. 16, no. 326.
10. ↑ Aquinas, Commentary on John, C. 1, L. 16, nos. 327-328.
11. ↑ Martin and Wright, Gospel of John, 51; Moloney, Gospel of John, 57.
12. ↑ Martin and Wright, Gospel of John, 52; Saint Augustine, quoted in Aquinas, Catena Aurea, vol. 4, St. John, on John 1:47-51.
13. ↑ Aquinas, Commentary on John, C. 1, L. 16, nos. 329-330; Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 331, 333.
14. ↑ Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 328, 336.
15. ↑ Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 335.
16. ↑ Saint Augustine, Tractates on John 7, quoted in Aquinas, Catena Aurea, vol. 4, St. John, on John 1:47-51.
17. ↑ “Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael,” Franciscan Media.

Books Cited

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• Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, The Navarre Bible: Major Prophets (Four Courts Press)
• Louis F. Hartman and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel, Anchor Bible 23 (Doubleday, 1978)
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Doubleday / Image, 2003)
• Francis Martin and William M. Wright IV, The Gospel of John, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Baker Academic, 2015)
• Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John, Sacra Pagina 4 (Liturgical Press, 1998)
• Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 1-8, trans. Fabian R. Larcher, OP (Aquinas Institute, 2013)
• Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, four-volume edition (Baronius Press)