catholicism 101 -- part 14

Catholicism 101
(The outline of this series is taken from Father Vernon Staley’s book The Catholic Religion.)
Church of the Holy Cross
June 1, 2008

Part 14

Christian Duty: Christian Belief: The Three Great Creeds: Concerning God: God the Creator: “things… unseen.”

- The Creation of the Angels

• In the hierarchy of creation, the angels are at the top.
• Their existence, though often ignored these days, is clearly and repeatedly attested by Scripture and by sacred Tradition (i.e. the dogmatic teaching of the Church).
• The word “angel” (In Greek: ανγελοσ ) means “messenger”. But this is not their oldest name, as there were none (so far as we know) originally to whom the angels could be messengers. “Angel” is their office, not their nature. Their nature is Spirit. They are personal. They are immortal.
• In the book of Job, these beings are called “the sons of God”, and we get a little glimpse into their most ancient activity:
• “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements -- surely you know! / Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38.4-7).
• Matthew 25.31 the Lord says “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him…” Thus Christ is the center of the angelic world. The angelic beings were created by him and for him. “They belong to him still more because he has made them messengers of his saving plan” (CCC 331):
• And the book of Hebrews calls them “ministering spirits” (“λειτουργικα πνευματα” = “liturgical spirits” or “spirits of worship”):
• “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?” (Heb. 1.14).
• From this passage we can see that the angelic activity is both Godward and manward oriented. I.e. they are beings whose activity involves the service and worship of God, and they act on behalf of humans, “those are to obtain salvation”.
• Angels are there at every stage of the way in the narrative of salvation. Scripture describes them at the creation of the world (Cf. Job, above), “announcing…salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham’s hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets… Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor [J-Bap] and that of Jesus himself” (CCC 332).
• Likewise they are with Jesus at every stage of his earthly life, from our Lady’s conception, to the Lord’s ascension: “Their song of praise at the birth of Christ has not ceased resounding in the Church’s praise: ‘Glory to God in the highest!’ They protect Jesus in his infancy, serve him in the desert, strengthen him in his agony in the garden, when he could have been saved by them form the hands of his enemies as Israel had been. Again, it is the angels who ‘evangelize’ by proclaiming the Good News of Christ’s Incarnation and Resurrection [cf. Lk. 2.8-14, Mk. 16.5-7]. They will be present at Christ’s return, which they will announce, to serve at his judgment [cf. Acts 1.10-11; Mt. 13.41, 24.31; Lk. 12.8-9]” (CCC 333).
• The lives of humans intersect with those of angelic beings:
• The “Guardian Angels” – Jesus said: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18.10).
• St. Basil the Great (lived in the 300’s): “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life” (Adv. Eunomium III).
• Most of all, believers and angels stand together in their shared work of worship:
• In the Church’s liturgy we sing with the Angels the “thrice-holy hymn” (the Sanctus: Isaiah 6.3, Revelation 4.8), and the Gloria in excelsis (Luke 2.14), and so join them spiritually, cooperating with their doxological work.
• Angels are moral beings. That is to say, they are not robots, but they have free-will. They may choose to do good or to do evil. In this respect, they are like humans; they are “moral agents”.
• Scripture hints at their being ranks of angels, an angelic hierarchy. Tradition speaks of nine “choirs” of angelic beings, in descending order of greatness:
• Seraphim – Isaiah 6. 2, 6; Cherubim – Gen. 3.24, Psalm 18.10; Thrones – Colossians 1.16; Dominions – Colossians 1.16; Principalities – Colossians 1.16; Powers – Colossians 1.16; Virtues – Ephesians 1.21; Archangels – 1 Thessalonians 4.16, Jude 9; Angels – Hebrews 1.13, 1 Peter 3.22
  

- The Fallen Angels

• Like everything made by God, the Angelic beings were created good. But because they are also free beings, they had the ability to choose to turn away from God, to disobey.
• Some of them did choose to turn away from God. The Church has usually held that the sin of the angelic beings (that is, the ones who did in fact sin), was that they turned to pride: the angels who did so became what we call devils (from Greek “διαβαλλειν” which means “accuser” or “slanderer”) or demons (from Greek “δαεμονιον” which meant a spirit or lesser deity, though not necessarily a malevolent one).
• “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing” (Fourth Lateran Council, 1215 AD).
• The “fall” of the evil angels consisted in their free choosing to radically and irrevocably reject God and his reign (CCC 392).
• The devil “has sinned from the beginning” and the Lord says: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8.44).
• When “the Seventy” return to Jesus rejoicing that “even the demons are subject to us in your name!” The Lord says “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10.18).
• St. John of Damascus says about the irrevocability of the rebellion of the evil angels: “There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death.”
• Scripture speaks of a chief of the fallen angels: Satan (a Hebrew word meaning “adversary” or “accuser”).
• Matthew 25.41: “…the devil and his angels….”
• Revelation 12.7: “…the dragon and his angels…”
• Luke 11.15: “…the prince of demons…”
• Evil angels likewise have a power of influence over the physical world and a power to lure humans away from God.
• “Behind the disobedience choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel,” namely Satan. (CCC 391.)
• “Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls ‘a murderer from the beginning’… ‘The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.’ [1 John 3.8] In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.” (CCC 394) Jesus came to give life, and therefore to destroy the work of him who was “a murderer from the beginning”.
• It is important to remember though that Satan is not the opposite of God. He is a creature made by God, who rebelled against God, whose end, we know, is destruction and defeat. If Satan has a counterpart among good beings, it would probably be St. Michael the Archangel. But even St. Michael is more powerful than Satan, because the visionary of the Apocalypse shows Michael warring against Satan and winning:
• “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Revelation 12.7-9).
• “The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign” though he “may cause grave injuries – of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature – to each man and to society” (CCC 395). Yet the love of God is absolutely sovereign, and we know the end of the story.