What is a Divine Appointment?
A divine appointment is a meeting or encounter with another person that is believed to be specifically and intentionally arranged by God for a specific purpose. It's often seen as a moment where God uses individuals to bless or encourage others, often in unexpected or seemingly coincidental ways.
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2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Once upon a time the Church was wracked by tempests of doubt and division. There was widespread confusion among the faithful regarding the significance of the sacraments and, as a result, the clear path to salvation was obscured.
The Eucharist and penance seemed to have lost their celestial and binding power, becoming more motions than mysteries, and humanity’s cooperation in its own salvation appeared to diminish as exhortations to “Be a sinner and sin boldly” began to undermine people’s concern for adhering to ancient moral teachings.
All the while, the faithful were pelted by a hailstorm brought on by new technology. The printing press deluged people with information, misinformation and opinions, often driven by a polemical, incendiary tone that served more to drive the members of the battered Ecclesia apart rather than gather them together.
This tale, for all its odd familiarity, took place 500 years ago in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, unleashed by Martin Luther in 1517. The Church faced an apocalyptic spiritual landscape in those dark years, as brother turned on brother, Rome, the capital of Christendom, was sacked, and the papacy seemed to fiddle for personal interests as the city burned (Clement VII wanted a dukedom for his nephew, and no one quite knows what Julius III was doing …).
Throughout the whole world, the ancient Church was of one mind, always addressing the Mother of God in the words of the angel: Ave Maria, gratia plena. Our immediate ancestors, joining their elders in devout harmony, sang the Ave Maria always and everywhere, thinking themselves to be pleasing the King of Heaven by reverently honoring his Mother, and not seeing a more proper way to honor her than by imitating the respect that God himself had decreed that she be shown on the day when his Divine Majesty honored all mankind in this Virgin by becoming man himself. O what a holy greeting, what true praise, what rich and decorous honor! God dictated the words, the archangel pronounced them, the evangelist inscribed them, all antiquity treasured them, and our parents taught us them.
Yet here is something strange. Do you not remember that when David played on the lyre, “the harmful spirit departed” from Saul, as though vanquished by the sweet melody (1 Sam 16:23)? And now, that same evil spirit, the sworn enemy of harmony and concord, having come into the possession of certain lightheaded persons, has through their mouths uttered a thousand insults and blasphemies against the use of this holy greeting.
In his Harmony of the Gospels, Calvin calls us superstitious for greeting someone who is not in our presence and taxes us with meddling in the affairs of others. He also accuses us of using magic, saying that we show ourselves to be poorly instructed when we use this greeting as a prayer, when it was nothing other than words of congratulation. All this blame comes to three points: first, that it is an unlawful usurpation of the office of the angels for us to make use of the Angelic Salutation; second, that it is superstitious to greet an absent person; third, that it is stupid to think that we are praying when we say it. O these wretched people! They would have done better simply to have said that it is wrong to pray the Angelic Salutation because it is the Church that recommends us to do so, for nothing the Church does is according to their liking.
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