The Morning Star

[benedict_x]

I'm sorry if this sounds stupid but I just got to know.


Who is the Morning Star?

Is it Jesus or Lucifer?

[Adeodatus]

Morning Star has been applied to Jesus, Mary and the devil (i.e. to the New Adam, the New Eve, and the ancient serpent).

The most beautiful thing in all creation is the humanity of Jesus. It is the created human nature of the uncreated, eternal Son of God, and it is utterly beautiful. So Jesus is the ‘light of the world’ (John 8.12). The Scriptures call Him ‘Sun of Righteousness… with healing in its wings’ (Malachi 4.2). The Liturgy calls Him the ‘Sun of Justice’. He is the ‘Star [which comes] out of Jacob’ (Numbers 24.17). His human birth is heralded by a ‘Star in the East’ (Matthew 2.1-10). And so Jesus is Himself called ‘the Bright and Morning Star’ (Revelations 22.16 and 2 Peter 1.19).

But the humanity of Jesus is taken from the Virgin Mary. By her association with Christ, she is herself called the ‘Morning Star’ in the Litany of Loreto. If Jesus is the ‘Sun’, then Mary is like the Morning Star (i.e. the planet Venus) which rises ahead of the rising sun, and is itself the brightest and most beautiful of all the ‘stars’. That is, apart from Jesus's human nature, Mary is the most beautiful thing in all creation, and she is fittingly called ‘Morning Star’, because she precedes Jesus her Son, the ‘Sun of Justice’ and heralds His dawning.

The devil was also called Lucifer, ‘the light of the morning’ (Job 11.17), and in the person of the King of Babylon, he is told, ‘How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!’ (Isaiah 14.12). ‘Morning Star’ is not his proper name, but refers to the state from which he has fallen. He was made beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful of all the angels, but has now fallen in his pride. And now his name is ‘Satan’ (adversary).