The life of St Ezekiel
Five years into that exile, at the age of thirty, he received a vision that marked the true beginning of his prophetic calling, seeing four living creatures each bearing four faces, of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Later generations of Christians came to read this vision as a foreshadowing of the four Evangelists whose Gospels would one day carry Christ's own message to the world. From that point Ezekiel spoke first in warning to the exiles of the suffering still to come for Jerusalem's unfaithfulness, and later in hope, foretelling their eventual return home and the rebuilding of the Temple they had lost. He is remembered as a prophet whose visions reached further into mystery than most of those who came before him, given for the sake of a people who needed both rebuke and the promise of restoration.
