Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 18
First Sunday of Lent.
Angel Guardians.
"And behold: angels came and ministered to Him." — Matt. iv. 11.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Ingersoll's argument, II. His audience. III. Angels and devils.
I. Satan quoting Scripture : 1. Misapplies. 2. Misinterprets. 3. Mutilates.
II. Angels: 1. Hierarchy of guardians. 2. Attendant devils. 3. Life's perils.
III. Guardians: 1. Rouse sinner and prevent relapse. 2. Insure perseverance and defeat devils. 3. Save from spiritual and material dangers and God's wrath.
Per. : A beautiful, consoling, salutary doctrine.
SERMON.
Brethren, last Sunday an eloquent blasphemer tried to refute a Catholic, a Christian dogma — the existence of the fallen angels. His argument, to be complete, should have included a denial of his own existence, for, verily, a perverse genius that can so hate God and scoff so at religion lacks little of the malice of a Lucifer. It would seem to have been a stroke of Providence that on that very Sunday from every Catholic pulpit should have been read the gospel of Our Lord's temptation by a demon, living and actually present. You know what arguments that tempter used- — appeals to sensuousness, to presumption and to pride, and truly Satan's disciple is not above his master, for he used the selfsame weapons but more clumsily. It is an eloquent commentary on the spirit of the age that men, supposedly intelligent, can be swayed by, and applaud, such shallow sophistry. The irreverence of it, too,( that men, Christians, Catholics perhaps, though God forbid, — that men, I say, should relish seeing Christ mocked and scourged and spat upon, relish hearing the Scriptures ridiculed or wrested round against our sacredest beliefs! The demon tempter of Our Saviour quoted Scripture, and likewise, too, his follower. Ah! the Bible is indeed an inexhaustible mine of facts, but if the miner have not on his forehead the lamp of faith, he finds no golden ingots of truth, but only useless dirt, — the ruins of the past and the bones of many an error long since dead. Refutation of such errors and flimsy arguments is time misspent. For us it is sufficient that the word of God infallibly says the devil does exist, and every miserable temptation and fall in our sinful lives proclaims his active presence. The doctrine of the existence of angel guardians implies the existence of the devil as day implies night and defence denotes offence. As an answer, therefore, I remind you to-day of that consoling doctrine; viz., that God hath given His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your feet against a stone."
Brethren, in tempting Christ with scriptural words to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple, the devil trebly sinned. First, he misapplied the text. The ninetieth Psalm from which he quoted does not apply to Christ, but to the virtuous man amid the pitfalls of this world. Christ's soul enjoying perpetually the beatific vision and His body being the temple of the Most High, He had no need of angel guardians. He it is who guards them all, and though they came and ministered to Him, they came when Satan left; they came not to protect but to serve, for sin to Christ was an impossibility. To Peter in Gethsemane He said : " Knowest thou not that I can ask My Father and He will give Me presently more. than twelve legions of angels?" Were there no such things as devils or were man proof against their wiles, the need of angel guardians would cease. Again, the devil misinterpreted. The stones of which the Psalmist speaks are spiritual stumbling-blocks, over which the angels help whoever has a mind to help himself. To literally, therefore, cast one's self from a lofty tower, or plunge down the precipice of sin, relying on God for safety, would be both tempting God and presuming on His mercy. Finally, Satan purposely misquoted Scripture, suppressing the words, " that they keep thee in all thy ways," thus falsifying the entire tenor of God's promise, and throwing on God the burden of protecting man not only in the level paths of rectitude but also amid the precipices of sin. Thus it is the devil and his votaries garble the sacred word of God to foster vice. With murderous hand they poison the fountains of the knowledge of God to kill men's souls, and that they do not oftener succeed is due to God alone, whose mighty power reveals betimes their malice and out of evil brings much good.
Brethren, with the single exception of Christ's soul, all others have had and have their own duly appointed angel guardian. From the first moment of its creation until the settlement of its final destiny the angel of God is by its side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. In joy and sorrow, through virtue and through sin, the faithful monitor is ever there, beseeching, prompting, or applauding. From the lost soul he parts reluctant at the gates of hell, or stands triumphant at the heavenly portals to welcome in his charge. It helps us to realize the value of a human soul to think how God has hedged her round about with safeguards and protectors. A soul is God's most precious treasure, which He needs must leave for a time in a foreign land, but which meantime He guards with almost incredible care and vigilance. God's heart is where His treasure is, and the eyes of His providence are ever on her. The law of Nature, and the divine and human laws are as three walls, or rather a trench, a moat, and battlement, thrown round the soul to guard her from her enemies. The innumerable benefits bestowed on her are as so many chains of steel, binding the soul to God, while the law of Christian charity, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," makes all the world her champion. But men are weak and oftentimes corrupt and traitorous, and so, lest man should fail in duty to his fellow man, and robbers steal the treasure, God posts a guard of angels of sure fidelity and matchless strength. How precious must that treasure be that God doth guard so jealously! What lofty dignity is man's! Christ said: " Despise ye not even the lowliest of My little ones, for I say to you their angels are ever gazing on the face of My Father who is in heaven." The humblest child is as a princeling to his heavenly Father, and always has his guard and tutor by his side. Not only to one but to many of His angels has God intrusted us, for besides the individual guardian of each soul, there is another for each parish, city, state, and nation — an angelic hierarchy. Thus the prophet Daniel speaks of the angels of the Jews„ the Greeks and Persians. Besides, St. John in the Apocalypse, writing to the Asiatic Bishops, styles them the seven angels of the Church in Asia, and Christ, concerning John the Baptist, quotes the words of Malachias: " Behold I send My angel before thy face who shall prepare thy way before thee." Bishops, pastors, therefore, and preachers of the word of God, as well as parents and pedagogues, are by reason of their office, angel guardians. Behold then the vast array of visible and invisible forces God has marshalled in the cause of righteousness and our soul's salvation! How happens it, you ask, that, notwithstanding, many souls are lost? Ah, the devil has his angels too, and he hath given them charge over us, to drag us down, if possible, into sin and hell. Angels of darkness invisible and visible too, for every foul blasphemer and perverter of mankind is Satan's accredited agent, even though he believes and tries to prove that devils do not exist. God in His wisdom permits such things to be to prove us and enhance our heavenly reward. But while He merely tolerates the devil and his works, the whole activity of the guardian angels is by God's express command. Not but that the angels are right eager for the work, for loving God, they love God's images, our souls, for whom He died, and ardently desiring our salvation, they closely guard us in all our ways. Along the steep and rocky path of life, by awful precipices and over yawning chasms, up the narrow way of virtue, they lead us heavenward. Ah, how many times we have stumbled, aye, and fallen! How often had our fall been final were not God's sweet angel there to lend a helping hand! The way of life is hard, and for the most part tiresome, but for the just man doubly so. The wicked ship their oars and give themselves to carousal and debauch while drifting toward the cataract, but the virtuous must pull up-stream and strain incessantly. There is no pause or break in our life's journey. As men aboard ship, whether they sit or sleep, are ever moving on, so on the road of life even when we rest neglectfully or slumber in forgetfulness, we are ever moving on. Things glide by us and are forgot, the joyful and the sorrowful alike. So on a journey pleasant fields and stately homes and barren wastes are seen and passed and left behind. We step in the footprints of those who went before, and others follow after us in ours, and where those were but yesterday we are to-day, and where we are to-day others will be to-morrow. Ask the money in your pocket how many men have called it theirs ; ask your land how many owners it has had since time began, and learn from them that life is a journey — that man has here no permanent abiding-place. How hard is the climb to eminence! yet pontiffs even and kings are barely seated on their thrones when lo! they must make way for others. And woe to us should we forget we are but passing through! Woe to us if we should load ourselves down with worldly goods, or gaze too long or lovingly on the things we pass, for the night of sin will overtake us and those robbers and wild beasts — the devils — work our ruin. Angels and ministers of grace defend us, for woeful need have we, poor wayfarers, of their guidance and protection!
Brethren, in their hands the angels bear the just man up, lest perhaps he dash his foot against a stone. Seven times a day the just man falls and he still continues just, for the guilt of sin is not so much in the falling as in the staying down. The angel guardian's first concern, therefore, is to awake his charge from sin. You remember how St. Peter, bound with two chains, was kept in prison to be executed on the morrow, and how his angel guardian came in a flood of light, and woke him up, and knocked away his fetters, and set him free. Peter is there a figure of a sinner chained to his sin by long habit and presumption of God's mercy, and entirely oblivious of his doom. Then comes his angel guardian, rousing him, giving him light to see his folly, and strength to shake off his lethargy, and lo! there is joy in heaven over one more sinner doing penance. The angel's next anxiety is to keep his ward away from all the persons, places, and things, that might effect relapse. We read that Lot, a just man, lived amid the wickedness of Sodom and that his angel came and bade him flee and not dare look back, for so alone could he escape the fire and brimstone soon to shower on that fated city. Lot hesitated to obey, and then the angel seized him and forced him out the walls. Oh how many times God's angel has to warn the penitent; to force him by disease or poverty away from the occasions and companions of his former sinful life! And when the penitent, disobeying, still looks back, how often is the sweetness of escape turned to salty bitterness! Thirdly, the angel labors to have his convert persevere. The prophet Elias on his way to Mount Horeb to see and speak with God, was overcome with weariness, and turning aside fell fast asleep, but an angel roused him up and giving him to eat said: " Get thee on, a long way is still before thee." Ah, many a penitent prodigal in the carrying out of his resolve to arise and go to his Father soon finds the way too long and arduous, and were not his angel guardian there to nourish and encourage him, he would never persevere to see God face to face on the blessed mount of paradise. Again the angel teaches his protege how best to put to flight the robber devils that beset his path, viz.; by prayer and holy meditations. The young Tobias, at the angel Raphael's bidding, placed the entrails of the fish on burning coals, and thereupon the demon that slew the seven suitors of his bride was quickly driven away. So, too, the guardian angel counsels the one committed to his care to set not his entire mind and heart on earthly things, but to expend at least a portion of them in thought on hell or on the fire of God's love, for thus the devil must be routed and his temptations met. And since Our Lord Himself has warned us that the devil once ejected is ill content unless with seven other devils viler than himself he can return and regain possession, the angel guardian instructs his client how he can best prevent his last state becoming worse than was his first. Gedeon with thirty-two thousand armed men went forth against the Madianites, but an angel of God commanded that all the weak and timid should return, and immediately twenty-two thousand soldiers laid down their arms. The angel then bade Gedeon lead the ten thousand men remaining to a stream, and watch how each should drink, " for," said he, " those men alone are fit for war who slightly bend and use their hands as cups, but all that lying prone shall lap the water up like dogs will surely fail in battle." The result left Gedeon scarce three hundred men, and yet they fought the enemy and gained a glorious victory. Oh blessed teaching of our angel guide, which proves the kingdom of God suffereth violence and that not the timid but the violent bear it away! To conquer in the struggle for salvation, we must not cling too closely to the world, nor drink too deeply of its pleasures, nor too eagerly feast upon its delicacies, but with our faces as much as may be ever turned to God we should seek and take from earth no more than our necessities demand. But not alone from unseen perils do our angels guard us, but from visible dangers too. Let Josue, Ezechias and Eliseus testify how angel hosts did battle for them in their hour of need. Judith returning with Holofernes' head declared: " The angel of God hath been my keeper going hence, and abiding there, and returning hither." From wild beasts, too, the angels guard us, as witness Daniel in the lions' den and the martyrs in the arena. From inanimate objects, too, as for example, the three youths in the fiery furnace. But most of all our angels stay the arm of God's wrath deservedly upraised to strike us. You remember the parable of the fig-tree, barren for three long years and which the owner ordered finally to be cut down and burned; but the gardener begged for one year more to prune and water it. Ah! how many a soul through boyhood, youth, and manhood bears no fruit but sin! How many had been long since damned had not their angels begged for one more chance until, watered with affliction and pruned with poverty and sickness, they turned to God and brought forth fruit worthy of penance!
Brethren, in all religion there is no doctrine more poetical, more beautiful, more touching, and consoling than the doctrine of the angel guardians. It brings home to us our dignity as God's own children, His tender, fatherly love, the existence of innumerable foes to our salvation, our duty to cooperate with grace, and the purity and sanctity that should mark our lives, living, acting, speaking, thinking as we ever do in the presence of our angels. The effect of such a doctrine should certainly be to make salvation easier, and God forgive the sacrilegious hand that fain would rob us of it. Let us learn and frequently repeat that prayer :
" Angel of God, my guardian dear,
To whom His love commits me here;
Ever this day be at my side
To light and guard, to rule and guide."
So will our angels shield us from harm here and when our hour of dissolution comes, their hands will bear us as they bore the soul of Lazarus onward, upward, heavenward, into Abraham's bosom.