Meditations on the Holy Angels

October 1st

Who are the Angels?


The Holy Angels were God's first creation. Before them God was alone in His Divine Majesty. But His infinite love prompted Him to create other beings to share His happiness and His glory, and He made the Angels in His own image and likeness, and gave to them gifts which should prepare them for their glorious destiny. It is the mark of true love, that it desires that its happiness should be shared by others. Have I this love to all around me?

The Holy Angels are the beings who approach in their nature most nearly to God Himself. They have no corruptible bodies to drag them down. They are thus immeasurably superior to ourselves in natural gifts. They have a knowledge altogether surpassing the highest knowledge to which men can attain, and a control over the natural world compared with which man's puny efforts to control it are mere feebleness. In every part of his nature man is inferior to them. Yet one day, by God's mercy, we shall escape from the bondage of corruption and share all the privileges which they enjoy.

The Holy Angels from their first creation reflected in themselves God's infinite perfections in a way that no other created beings ever did. This was because they were so near to God, on the very threshold of His Presence. They were like courtiers trained up from childhood in the ante-chamber of their king, and learning gradually to share in His royal prerogatives from their very nearness to Him. If I desire to be like to God, I must live in a continual remembrance of Him, with the thought of Him continually present in my heart.


by the Rev. R.F. Clarke, S.J.


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