Missing the angels; Angels: Day 248

Last updated on: March 28, 2017 at 3:00 am by Pete Socks

Missing the angels; Angels: Day 248 2017-03-26T05:49:01-05:00 Pete Socks

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We were created to be in fellowship with angels, says St. Gregory the Great. But our sin keeps us out of Heaven and bound to Earth. How can we help mourning what we’ve lost?

“But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of under- standing? Man does not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living” ( Job 28:12-13). In this passage, what does the name “land” mean but the human soul?—about which the psalmist says, “my soul thirsts for you like a parched land” (Ps. 143:6).

But this wisdom cannot be found in the land of the living, because whoever is still fed with the pleasures of this life is cut off from the perception of the eternal Wisdom. Anyone with a truly wise mind, when banished from the eternal delights, would mourn over the blind condition of the exile he has fallen into.

This is why Solomon says “he who increases knowledge increases sorrow” (Eccles. 1:18). The more we begin to know what we have lost, the more we begin to mourn the sentence passed on us for our corruption. We see where we have fallen from and where we have fallen into; we see how we have come from the joys of Paradise into the woes of the present life—from the company of angels to worrying about necessities. We consider what a number of dangers we now lie exposed to, when we formerly disdained to stand without danger. We mourn the exile we are cursed to suffer, and sigh after the condition of heavenly glory that we might be enjoying safely if we did not have the urge to commit sin.

The psalmist rightly sees this and says, “I had said in my alarm, ‘I am driven far from your sight’” (Ps. 31:22). After contemplating the interior joys of the vision of God, and the assembly in fellowship of the angels holding fast, he brought back his eyes to things beneath. He saw how he was laid low, when he was created so that he might stand in heavenly realms. –St. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, 18.66

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

I may not be able to stand in Heaven with the angels yet, but do I remember their companionship and ask for their help?

CLOSING PRAYER

Guardian Angel, shelter me under your wings; light my path, and guide my steps.

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