Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: As Catholics, we have to not only accept mediation, we have to rejoice in mediation. We grant that other people are involved in our life, but it's really just me and Jesus. It's a both and, but it's a critical both and that God wants to bring us home through our angel, even at moments of temptation, and wants to speak to us, as you say, through our angel.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Welcome to the Catholic Theology show presented by Ave Maria University. This podcast is sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle, a community that supports the mission of Ave Maria University through their monthly donations of $10 or more. If you'd like to support this podcast and the mission of Ave Maria University, I encourage you to visit avemaria.edu Join for more information.
I'm your host, Michael Doffinay, and today I am happy to be joined by Professor Mark Miravali, who has a chair of Mariology both at Franciscan University and at Ave Marie University. And just welcome to the show.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: It's a joy to be with you, Michael. It's a joy to talk about both theology in general and angels in specific. Glad to be here.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Excellent. And listeners may remember that there's an earlier podcast episode in which we talked about Mary's, especially her maternal intercession for us, Mary as our mother. But today we want to talk about the role of angels and demons in the mystery of, you know, maybe just to kind of start with a big question, especially in a world that's so dominated by empirical science, by history, by what we can know, why shouldn't the Church just stick to more obvious stuff, like Jesus rose from the dead, he commissioned the apostles. These are things that are tangible. They're visible.
Should we get rid of the angels and the demons, so to speak, would that make the faith more attractive?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I think quite the contrary, Michael. That's precisely why the angels are so important. I wouldn't lead line this in common discussion today, but in the 13th century, you had to have a class on the angels, because it's angels that connect the divine with the human. So you've got God, who's an uncreated person. Right. We're created persons with bodies, but the angels are in the middle. So I think there's a Copernican need for angelic discussion today because we got to get to be looking up, and we're not looking up. We're looking at each other and in some ways, manners that are not helping our society right now. So I think the angels are a spiritual remedy and a call for us precisely to put the spiritual, first, in an age that seems to be very reluctant to do that.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: That's beautifully put. And, yeah, I'm always struck by the Charles Dickens beautiful story, a Christmas Carol written in, I think it was like, the 1850s or so, but mid 19th century. And beautiful story, right, of Scrooge, while being a Scrooge and very stingy and eventually becoming a generous. But I always think it's interesting that he encounters the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present, the ghost of Christmas future. So we have, in a way, the Christian story, Christmas retold, in a way that leaves just two small things out. One, the angels, and secondly, Jesus.
And so one of the things we discover is that it's very hard to get rid of the angels and keep Jesus, right. Because usually the same principle by which we would get rid of angels is the same principle by which we would get rid of, actually, our souls, because they're immaterial and of God. And it's also the case that if we stop believing in angels, we start believing in ghosts in the 19th century. And I think today the parallel would be we stop believing in angels, but we believe in aliens. Somehow aliens are fascinating to people because people, they just have a natural sense that there's something intelligent in the universe, and maybe the universe is a big enough place that there's something intelligent beyond us. Right. And so when we stop believing in angels, we start believing in aliens, I think, anyway, trying to recover that sense of that. This is a part of our tradition, and that's very kind of helpful. It's almost like without will, as you pointed out, we get kind of off balanced in our overall understanding of what does it mean to be a human being.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Most certainly, Michael. And, you know, from Dickens to it's a wonderful Life, which is a great Christmas movie.
Well intended. Sweet. The angelology is a, you know, I still love it and still watch it every Christmas. But again, angels, we have to get to the question, so what's the angel? Right? And that presupposes all our discussion of why they're so necessary to keep us focused on the spiritual. Right. So angels are not recycled human beings. I love Clarence. I'm glad he orders a rum punch. But that's not how it happens. Right. And so the angel is the created spiritual person without a body, and that's why he's so important in the whole dimension of creation. And, yeah, we are facing an era of extremes. We either have new age where angels are everything, and you kind of reincarnate into an angel, and then you got the other extreme, which is this rationalism, empiricism. If I can't see it, I don't buy it. I've got to have some empirical evidence. And so I think the angels have never been more needed to get us focused beyond ourselves and beyond just the material. And there's a long history with that, from Descartes on. I mean, all of modern philosophy is saying, well, at least the empiricist dimension, also the rationalist dimension, you can't see it, don't buy it. So what about love, Michael? And what about the Trinity? What about the sacred heart of Jesus? What about our Lady? And what about the angels? And I would even say there could be a demonic dimension to the denial of the angels, ironically, because, right, Satan is an angel, he's a fallen angel. But it's much to his credit and advancement for us to deny the angels, because we're also in a spiritual war and they're key members in this spiritual warfare. So it's great that we would make light of their presence, not only existence to help us remember the spiritual, but that we need them right now in a pretty intense spiritual bAttle. And there's nothing more dangerous than being in a battle and not knowing you're in a battle.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So you've been teaching a course on the angels, angelogy angels and demons for what, many decades?
[00:07:42] Speaker A: I'm not that old, Michael, of course, but now over 20 years.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Over 20 years, right. At Franciscan. And tell us a little bit about how, what are some things you really want to teach in that course? What do you think is kind of like, what are some takeaways that you want the students to remember five years from now?
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Right. It's a great question and I'm grateful for it. What an angel is, what an angel does, the hierarchy inquires of the angels. Mortimer Adler. Adler, who was a philosopher and agnostic, and he went around as an agnostic teaching about the angel choirs, because he said there's no single subject that more fascinating people than the nine choirs of the angels. So the choirs, but ultimately your guardian angel and its relationship to you, how should we respond? And I would say if we spoke about nothing else, that last category would be worth it. Because the fact is the catechism tells us the church teaches God gave you a being far more intelligent, higher on the level of natural creation.
I mean, don't play chess with your angel. Blitzkriegian, three moves.
But it's for a critical reason. Your angel is given to you to get you home. Your angel knows more about you than a spouse, than a parent. His hard drive has your whole life on that in a way to guide you. So I would say ultimately, it should all lead to our relationship with the Guardian angel.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's that scene in the Gospels where when Jesus is after wrestling and rejecting the temptations of Satan that he's ministered to by the angels. So even Jesus in his human nature is helped, which is kind of staggering. Right. If Jesus is helped by the angels, how much more do we need? It might just turn out that Jesus was able to see that and share that with his apostles, whereas we, in many ways, might be blind to it. So how do we then recover this openness to seeing the angels and yet not fall into kind of this obsession with the peculiar or, like, falling, where we're not really keeping our faith focused on Jesus Christ, on, you know, the teachings in the catechism?
And we become just kind of, I don't know how to put it, where we become so focused on trying to find, like, oh, what's going on? With. In every little fascinating thing, we're like, oh, my angel did that. My angel did that, or that's going on and that's going on. And it seems like that's also kind of a danger. So how do we have this kind of balanced sense of wonder but also kind of an ordered faith?
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah. The key word is balance, which you used well. And so we have to start with the fact that these angels are our Lord's angels. Scripture tells us these are his angels that he gives us. St. Thomas says, the angels are God's secondary causes. He seeks to do everything through his angels. And so it's part of Christian revelation that they exist. And then if you go to Matthew, 1810, Jesus says, their angels talking about the children, do not keep them from me. Their angels in heaven always behold the face of my father. And so the fathers of the Church were very strong on the reality not only of the angels, but the reality of the guardian angel. Sometimes they would differ about when the Guardian angel took its role. Some would say at baptism. Jerome said at baptism. Basil would say, at birth, I think right now we have to say hopefully at conception, because there's no more dangerous place in the world than the womb, tragically. And so we need the angel right from the beginning. So it's simply part of the family of God to include, we have the Trinity, we have our lady, we have St. Joseph, we have the angels. And so it's a good question. Know, how do we not get so focused on the angel that we lose sight of the bigger family, and that's to remember how rich our family is. And there's an order to our family. Right? There's the Trinitarian order to our family. We've got our Lady. That brings us JeSus. We have St. Joseph, who guards that Holy Family. And so the angels are seen, as Augustine says, they're messengers of God. That's their task. At the same time, we don't want to do the other extreme and saying, I don't need my angel. I don't need to talk to my angel. I'm doing just fine without this individual person, which God the Father's always willed to guide Michael Doffinay to heaven. But Michael Doffney's got enough without him. So that would be a presumption. Right? So I think that's the balance we go in revelation, we realize they're a critical part of our family. We want to include them for who they are and what they're called to do for us.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And if we think about that, too, when Jesus is born, it's the angels that announce his birth to the shepherds. And maybe there's a time in our lives when we heard the message of Christ for the first time, that we somehow heard the message of his birth or of his death, his resurrection, in a way that penetrated our heart.
And that message might have been partially communicated in part by not only by God, but by the angels, when we're open, in a way to hearing God, just like I can't hear you speak unless there's air. I can't hear you speak unless you talk. I can't hear you speak unless my ears. The physical, anatomical aspects are working, but you're speaking. So again, God's speaking.
But that doesn't mean God isn't also addressing me through my family members who have shared the faith with me, through teachers, through angels. Right. And I think particularly having that idea that angels are associated with us hearing the good news and then following it. Right. That's. In a way, that's what an angel does.
I think it's in the Old Testament, in Exodus, I will send my angel before you to lead you on the way. And maybe it is a little bit of just setting aside our own hubris, our own pride to recognize. Maybe a lot of the good thoughts I've had were whispered in my ear by a guardian angel. And how beautiful. Of course, I don't feel bad when my children have good ideas that I whispered in their ear. That seems appropriate and fitting. Or when I realize that I have good ideas that were whispered in me. Right. There's no original thought. And if there is, God forbid, I hope I don't have one. I hope I just continue to repeat the good and wise things that have been said before.
So that idea, I think it's really beautiful to think about that sense of. That the angels communicate the good news to us and lead us home.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Yep. And Michael too, if I may add. Of course, the angels speak to us through conscience, and that's not accidental and it's not external in that sense. I mean, that's our inner sanctuary.
And that's why God seeks to use the angels for mediation. I mean, look, as Catholics, we have to not only accept mediation, we have to rejoice in mediation. It's not just something that, well, okay, we grant that other people are involved in life, but it's really just me and Jesus. It's a both and, but it's a critical both and that God wants to bring us home through our angel. He wants to, even at moments of temptation, and wants to speak to us, as you say, through our angel, even Jesus. After the temptation and the agony of the garden, the angel comes. And most commentators think that's probably Gabriel because that's the angel that announces know as sometimes it's reckoned, Gabriel is the Archangel of the Son, Michael is the Archangel of the Father in the service of the Father, and Raphael is the Archangel of the Spirit because he's concerned with healing. So we should. Again, it's a family thing. It's not just contractual or trying to figure out who's first. Thanks be to God. Our family is so Rich and the angels are a critical, essential part of that family life.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: And within a lot of the Theophanes or visions of God in the Old Testament, in Isaiah we have, right, in Ezekiel, you have the throne of God surrounded by the angels. In the Book of Revelation, again, we see the throne of God surrounded by the angels. And maybe, of course, it can give us comfort if we ever feel like we don't remember God enough or worship him enough, that we can remember that the angels are right. So in a certain sense, God is always receiving his Glory.
One thing I wanted to ask a little bit more about is I think there's something that when we stop believing in angels, we start thinking that human beings are angels.
And kind of what I mean by this is. So if we go back through a little bit of the history of know, Rene Descartes has this emphasis on our reason as really that which defines us. So he famously argues, right? I think, therefore I am. But you notice it's not I think of anything. I just think, right. So just he's, as he puts it, we are a thinking thing that's inside a body thing.
So he then says, well, the only kind of Knowledge that would be adequate would be perfect knowledge. That's totally Clear. As he puts it, we have to have clear and distinct ideas.
Quote those perceptions which are so self evident that while they are held in the mind, they cannot logically be doubted.
Now, that kind of sounds great, but one of the problems is that it's not entirely clear that we have any knowledge that meets that standard.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Any knowledge that is so clear and distinct because we, unlike the angels, are actually embodied, rational beings. So our modes of knowing and knowledge are often, I mean always somehow associated with images, memories, often things that are both kind of complete and incomplete. We might occasionally get really clear and distinct ideas in mathematical sciences where we can see all of a sudden that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle must be 180 degrees. But outside of math, it's very hard to figure out. In terms of human life, we're never in the realm of clear and distinct ideas. So Jill Son will criticize Descartes, says he's basically falling into angelism. He's defining human reason in the mode of the angelic knowing and therefore saying, what I think the rest of modernity and postmodernity says is, therefore all human reasoning is inadequate. It's not really sure. And yet the moment you actually remember that there are angels, you're like, oh, wait a second. That's how angels think. But we think in ways that are slower, more. I don't know. They're messier because we have bodies, our minds are not perfect, right? We have moods. And yet the beauty is that in that we can still attain truth. But the truth we attain is going to be more. I don't know, just more complicated.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: So could you kind of talk a little bit about that idea, how that remembering the angels helps us to also remember the unique embodied rationality that human beings are?
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Sure. And why does Gilson quote Descartes? Because Descartes says, well, you can't have innate knowledge, right? But that's something that you just get. The problem, of course, with Descartes is he never gets out of the mind. Right. It's idealism in a frightening way. What about a unicorn? What about these? But why is it called angelisms? Because that is what happens with angel. So an angel, to use a contemporary example, God creates an angel with a hard drive. It's there. The knowledge is innate. It's already in there. How do we get knowledge? Well, Thomas and Aristotle tells we go through abstraction, right? So abstraction means we have external images. We see five trees, and then we take away the accidents of those tree, the nonessential qualities and what's left? Treeness. Right. The nature of the tree. But that presupposes external sense, internal sense, imagination, active intellect, passive intellect. Angels don't have any of that. They know immediately, which is also, quite frankly, why the angels don't get a second chance that we do, because, as you said, our knowledge is messy. Theirs is not. They know an essence immediately, and that's why they don't get a second chance, because they wouldn't change their mind. And that's the tragedy of hell. Right. In Revelations twelve, there's a third of the stars that go down with the dragon. Well, that's always been seen as the fathers, as the angels falling. That means that there's angels of the nine Choirs, so of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the thrones of the dominions and the virtues and the powers of the principalities, Archangels and angels. Some members of all nine of those choirs fall. And when they fall, Michael, they don't change their nature. Right. They've just abused their nature by rejecting God, nonservium. So that's a reality that is, in a real sense, a finality that we don't face. We can convert today. We can convert at any moment, because God knows our process is not immediate, innate, not Cartesian. It's incarnational. Right. It's through the world our Lord gives us that mercy. That's why we get angel, an individual angel. And most agree that our guardian angel is all from the 9th choir. That means there's as many angels on the 9th choir as there are human beings that have ever been or that ever will be. Angels don't recycle. Right. And that's just the lowest level. That's why they talk about the myriads of angel. That's part of God's generosity, too. But he wants us to have this being to help us get to eternal life.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that sense in which if we reject kind of this idea of this order, God, the angels, human beings, animals, plants, the rest of inanimate creation.
There's a tendency today where we either define man as merely an animal who's just very advanced, but a very good, like a very advanced chimp or something, or we kind of try to see man as almost like kind of a purely rational being and almost like an angel. And I think the beauty of the human person, right, is that we're in between.
We're in between, and that makes, Aquinas will say, right, we're like a microcosm of the universe because we have the spiritual and the material, and that's kind of what makes man a know. Pascal would write in response to, you know, we can't have absolute certainty about anything, but we also can't have absolute doubt about anything. We're kind of in the middle.
And he says, therefore, that's just where we need to live. We live in a world in which we have to kind of make judgments.
We may not be able to have logical certainty that Jesus rose from the dead, but we can have a good sense that there is enough evidence that he did right, that we can wager our lives in that direction.
But he does kind of make it like we're always going to have to risk somewhat, right? It doesn't mean that it's a blind risk, but we can't have the certainty that modernity often thinks is the only standard for knowledge. So we're going to come back after the break. But when we come back, I really want to look a little bit at what is this idea, though, of the fallen angel and to what extent, I don't know how to put it. How do we recover a healthy understanding of the fallen angels again without falling into an obsession or a fear of the fallen angels? So we'll come back after our breakup.
[00:25:40] Speaker C: You're listening to the Catholic Theology show presented by Ave Maria University and sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle. Through their generous donations of $10 or more per month, Annunciation circle members directly support the mission of AMU to be a fountainhead of renewal for the church through our faculty, staff, students and alumni. To learn more, visit avemaria.edu Slash join. Thank you for your continued support. And now let's get back to the show.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: I'm your host, Michael Dolphine. Today we have been joined by Mark Miravali, who holds chairs in mariology at both Franciscan University as well as Ave Marie University. And we're so glad to have you here on the show.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Thanks, Michael. It's a real honor.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: We've been talking about the angels and demons today and how they play an integral right in our overall understanding of the faith. So we wanted to consider a little bit about this idea or this truth that the angels, some of the angels fell. They did not lose their nature. They did not cease to be. But they abused their nature. They became fallen, darkened angels.
And one of the fascinating things is that the greatest, in a way, rebellion, the greatest battle, kind of takes place before the creation of human beings.
I feel like sometimes people don't understand this enough, that the world is, so to speak, already discordant before Adam and Eve are created. It's already discordant before the universe is created, before material creation happens.
There's a bad note that is sung.
Gerald Tolkien just has such a beautiful image in the Silmarillion where he describes God singing into creation, the world singing into creation. Creation. And then the Valar and the angels basically sing with him until one of the angels starts realizing that he can help create, and he wants to create his own know Melkor, and he ends up singing a discordant note, and then everything begins to sound. It's off. It's not harmonious anymore. But then at some point, the Yuvatar sings a third series. So you have both the original harmony, the disharmony, but then you have the third that is somehow disharmonious in just the right ways. That brings the disharmony back into harmony.
And so we kind of see there that, okay, there is something about this created order that's wounded Romans. Paul will say in Romans eight, right, that all of creation is kind of waiting and groaning in agony, waiting for the revelation of the children of God, waiting for the revelation of Christ, restoring all things.
And so I think sometimes if we can remember that idea, then it helps us have a little more sense that God has a plan and that there is something in this world that doesn't like, there are things in this world that don't quite work out.
And it's kind of almost rooted in our story.
And the world's not perfectable, not apart from Jesus Christ, anyway. So just what are some different things that you think that by knowing that there was an angelic fall, that that changes the way we see the world and see ourselves and kind of gives us a certain element of wisdom.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Yes.
It goes back to balance. Right. And in one sense, we have to be aware that we're entering a wounded world, and we have to have a healthy respect for the adversary. That's simply a reality. We have to realize nothing is worse than being in a battle and not knowing a battle is going on. So there is a battle happening that we inherit in that sense. And this has never been defined by the Church, but most theologians think that God had to test the angels. And some people, as you were talking earlier, Michael, thinking yeah, a lot of people don't have a clarity. Well, how could the angels be in heaven and be tested? Well, because they start in heaven, but they don't have the beatific vision they start, but they too, as created persons, have to be tested. So they are tested. What are they tested with? Most degree, it's the revelation of the future incarnation, right? That the second person, the word would take on a human flesh. And at that point, Lucifer, the light bearer, says, nonservium, I will not serve a God man. In fact, it would be more appropriate if you were going to incarnate, so to speak, you would become a God angel, because we're higher.
But don't expect me as a high angel to worship a God man. And then as people like St. Maximilian will add in the Franciscan school.
And especially when you want me to be venerating a woman, a human being woman that's going to be the mother of this God man. And she's supposed to be the queen of us.
I'm not buying it. I'm not accepting it. And that also reminds us, Michael, that there used to be the old 1970s program, Flip Wilson. The devil made me do it. Right? The devil made me do everything. Well, you can sin just by having a free will, right? Because no one tempted Lucifer.
So that's part and parcel of just having an intellect and will. You don't need an external temptation.
That's part of the power, but also the loss of having free will. So we start. And for the Christian, it's got to be a reality. Satan exists but a semicolon, not a period of that. Satan exists, and our Lord is so much more infinitely powerful, beautiful, light bearing, salvific, dominating in all things good than Satan. And the reason I put it in one sentence is you can get absorbed with darkness. And looking into more and more darkness will only keep you farther away from the light. So balance is important. Yes, Satan exists. Yes, Satan would like us to share his misery. Our Lord is so much more powerful and his victory is going to be both qualitative and quantitative, I believe. And the light is something we have to gravitate to because there's always this little fallen nature tendency to be obsessed with dark, occult, demonic.
Don't look at the present darkness more than you look at the infinite light. And that would be the balance we need as Christians.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think in some ways, when we look at the just deep airs into which cultures can fall, it's easier in a certain sense to think that there are some demonic forces at work because cultures have done, and within the last hundred years, let alone the last thousand or more, just awful things to one another. And that idea that there's something, that there's a dark force, there's a demonic force that's at work in some of these cultural evils and whether or not they be genocidal or just so many different forms, and yet also there's a way that, what is it about the human person that can so quickly turn on him or herself with a kind of hatred and self loathing, that sense of utter unworthiness? Yes, we do it to ourselves. Yes, we make ourselves unworthy. But to think that, I don't know, that there's not almost something kind of in our heads occasionally encouraging those negative thoughts.
I think it's just hard to explain why human life is so difficult, both individually and culturally, if there's not at least a battle going on. And some powers that are at work that exaggerate our heirs and that exaggerate our mean in that some ways, what the biblical story tells us is that Adam and Eve might have fallen without being tempted, but there was the deceit of the devil. The devil could just deceive, could turn things and twist things just enough to make it easier for us to no longer trust in God.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: I think it would be an unfortunate naivete to think that Beings created essentially good, although fallen essentially good, could, on their own, orchestrate the type of evil that we have seen. We had 180,000,000 state murders in the 20th century, principally communism. We've had the Mesopotamian culture and the Canaanite culture and the Aztec culture that all manifest the demonic dimension in terms of killing children, which is a strong statement about the movement of abortion today. It's classically one of the indications of a culture that has gone in such a decadent direction that it would attack the most innocent, the most beautiful, the most vulnerable. And so, as you were saying before, Satan wants us to think we're more like him than like the Father, right? Satan's the great ape of God.
He's trying to mimic the Father. And that even means in things like trying to create, trying to convince you and me, we're more like him in evil than God in goodness. And that's why we have to resist. And again, for a third time in our cast here, balance is so important. Michael, are we sinners? Of course we're sinners. But in light of our Lord, mercy is an ocean. It's a boundless. And we have our guardian angels to help us through this time first is the idea in contradistinction to the idea that, no, we're really corrupt by our nature. We're really more like Satan and rebellion than God's goodness. Well, that's not going to help us to be a people of witnesses to the light or evangelization. Enjoy. No one wants to join people who think they're miserable. And you're miserable, too.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: Yes.
And the way you put it there, that Satan wants to make us think that we are like him and not like God the Father. It's interesting because one of the, I think, effects you can see is despair. And what's the fundamental despair?
It's the despair that I can change.
Right. Because Satan can't change. Satan can't repent, as you pointed out, but human beings can. But the Satanic accusation.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: Right?
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Satan is the accuser. The devil is the scatterer.
The Holy Spirit is not the accuser, but the advocate, our defense attorney. It's the helper.
And so in a certain sense, the lie that Satan tells us is that we can't repent, we can't turn around, that God won't love us anymore, that God is not merciful, that God will not recreate us, that God has not entered into battle with him on the cross.
And that really is a powerful theme to recognize that if ever I have that notion in my head, that is not the Holy Spirit speaking to me.
And St. John Viani has a story. I've mentioned it once or twice before on the podcast, but he says that he stepped outside of his confessional and saw the penitence in line, but he saw the demons. And he says, what are you doing here in my church? And they said to him, we're trying to give back to the penitents, the people that are going to confession the shame that we took away from them when they were sinning. We're giving it back to them now so they won't confess their sins.
And that idea that once we've sinned, that the beautiful thing about God's mercy is it takes away that shame.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: It's critically important because, quite frankly, we're also in an age of nons, right, those who don't profess any particular belief. Recent Pew studies said we're now at a 30% level of nuns. That is to say, people say that's a third of our country, Michael, who don't have any religious affiliation.
Satan loves that stuff. He's going to go after them with a new vigor. And that's why both with the angels who are concerned about getting us home. I mean, the angels are evangelizers, right? They're the ones trying to say the good news to us. They're the ones to try to give us the encouraging temptations, the advocate. The Holy Spirit's an advocate, Our Lady's advocate. Our angels are advocates trying to get us on the right path. But I think, like never before, arguably, there is so much demonic effort to have people reject their personal goodness, to reject the grace of Jesus, to reject even a domain of angels. And that means we have to redouble our efforts and in that sense call upon our know, Michael, we all get these Holy Spirit openings with people. Sometimes it's not in our Daily planner, right? But there's an opening to say something about our Lord. We've got to accept the good temptation at that moment that our angel gives us. And Lewis says, if we accepted all the good temptations, as many as we often do, bad, we'd all be saints, right? So we're constantly getting these encouragements, but we have to have a heart for the people who don't know Jesus, who don't know their angel, who don't know that we are the victorious side. And I think both for us individually and our task as members in this new evangelization, the angels will help us to be open, to be ready for that moment, and to be bold in love, to bring Christ and bring light into this situation where so many don't have faith at all.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Yeah. You mentioned C. S. Lewis, and he wrote a well known book, the Screwtape Letters, which is he actually writes it from the perspective of the demons trying to tempt us.
And in there, in the introduction, he mentions this idea that Satan fell through the force of gravity. He took himself too seriously.
And he talks about the sense of injured merit, right. That he felt like he was not being honored in honoring our Lord and our Lady. And I think we have to kind of have that sense that we have that same choice when we cease to take ourselves so seriously.
I think it's Chesterton who says, right, the angels fly because they take themselves so lightly, right.
If we're fostering that sense of injured merit, was I disrespected? What was I due?
We forget in a way that everything is gift. Right? That everything is a gift of God, a gift of our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, right. All the different things that we have today are often given to us. We've also cooperated and perhaps we give gifts to others, right. This is part of the choirs that we're invited to sing in. And one thing I wanted to ask you a little bit about. So in St. Athanasius's life of Anthony, he talks about Anthony of Egypt, who goes out into the desert and, like two, is born around 250, dies around 356.
And he lives a life of great asceticism. He has great battles with demons. Some of these. Sometimes he and other Jerome talk about going out into the wilderness and Praying, know they're attacked by images of young women, the temptations of lust. And you're kind of like. I mean, that also may just be the. May or May not be like Physical young women. It could just be. Of course, this is what Young people struggle with. They struggle with the temptations of lust. And so the idea that the demons would exaggerate these natural, in a way, temptations that, of course, can lead us astray. But he has many of these instances of kind of. He describes them as if they're doing battle, Sometimes even physically. But it's interesting. Then later on in the story, at some point, he comes out and he gives kind of basically a speech to Everyone and how they ought to live. And the Funny thing he says is he says, basically, don't even worry about the devil. The devil's already been defeated. So someone who's kind of been in combat with the demons says, don't even worry about them. All you need to do. And throughout the entire story, he always makes it clear it's never Anthony who ever defeats the devil, ever. He makes the sign of the cross.
It's the sign of the cross in the name of Jesus Christ that that gives us our power. So there's this kind of strange thing. The devils are part of his temptations, and yet at the same time, they.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: Have no power at all.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: They're utterly powerless before the name of Jesus Christ and that sign of the cross in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, no demon can.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: You.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: What's that paradoxical relationship that we ought to Foster?
[00:44:44] Speaker A: Right? Whether it's a Saint Athanasius or a padre PiO who also had physical battles with Satan, they're trying to, again, hit the encouragement notes of saying, in light of Jesus, Satan has nothing after they've just been thrown around their cell room and are bloodied by Satan. So how does that work? Well, because they're, of course, absolutely right by the power of Christ. And quite frankly, in those cases, by their own reparation. I mean, Padre Pio had two fears. One was he wasn't pleasing to God, which was, we won't Waste podcast time worrying about that one. But the other was that he was being gluttonous in sacrificing that he would take other people's sacrifice. I don't know about you, Michael, that was not my first worry this morning as I was shaving.
But they're doing that battle so other people will get the light right. That's part of the community. So it's a redemptive suffering battle then allows them to conclude Satan has no power because he has no real power over the soul who acknowledges Christ.
But you don't want to go to the other extreme and saying he doesn't exist. Going back to C. S. Lewis, he loves it when we dress our little kids in devil's outfits or their cartoons as if there's no real danger of the devil. So it gets again to the balance. Satan is real. Our Lord is infinitely more powerful. But we've got that free will. We've got the same free will Lucifer had. We've got to call upon the holy name of Jesus. We've got to do the sign of the cross. We've got to call on Our lady to crush the head of the adversary. There's a woman who was created to lead us in that battle, and that's the mother. And it's so appropriate that you'd have God's greatest creature and God's most heinous creature leading the spiritual battle. God, out of respect, lets creatures have this huge role, dynamic role in the great battle for souls. And that's why Our lady is the queen of angels, and that's why she crushes his head. And she also is victorious even in the Book of Revelations, I mean, the bookends of Scripture have the battle between this woman and the adversary.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: So when you speak about that, that we can defeat temptations, we can defeat Satan and the demons right? In the name of Christ, through Our lady, with Our Lady's help. But also in the sign of the cross. With the sign of the cross. What is it about suffering you had mentioned earlier, and like you just talked a little bit about when we were preparing for the podcast, you had mentioned that the angels can't suffer. Human beings in a certain sense, have an advantage then, because we can suffer.
[00:47:30] Speaker A: What does that mean when we think of our, and this gets really to our relationship with our guardian angel too, right? So St. Thomas says, what's the goal? Friendship. Friendship with your angel. Well, how do I inculcate a greater love of my angel? Well, how do you inculcate greater love with any person you talk to them, you acknowledge their existence. All the things that you have with human friendship, you want to develop with your guardian angel, some would say, well, that little guardian angel prayer angel, it's too hokey for me. It's too basic. Well, great. Well, then write yourself a more sophisticated one.
But for the rest of humanity, that one's just fine. It's got all the essential elements. So you have friendship, and your angel leads you in your vocation. No one can ever say, I would have a greater devotion to my angel, except I've got this vocation. Well, unless it's an intrinsically evil vocation, your angel is going to help you. But there's also the dimension where the human person helps the angel in this team effort towards sanctity. And that's because the angel can't do Colossians 124. They can't make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ because they don't have bodies and they can't suffer. So your angel will call you too fast to endure an unexpected physical suffering like a leg injury. I won't mention anything particular, Michael, but your angel will say, offer it up, offer it up. Offer it up. And, you know, when we tell our kids to offer it up, we don't have to go into a long distinction between objective redemption and subjective redemption. They get the idea that there's something valuable if I handle this patiently, that's what your angel's telling you. Endure this suffering, this relational suffering, this occupational suffering, endure it pAtiently. Unite it with the Cross of Jesus. Because I can't do that. I can't, as the angel, I can't physically do what you can do. Let's do it together.
You by the physical suffering, me by making sure you're uniting it with Christ so souls can be saved and more people can make it to the eternal banquet.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Yeah, so as Satan says, non servium, and Michael the Archangel says, right, servium, I will serve. That we get to kind of add on to that. We can say both servvium, I will serve, but also, right, I will suffer that I will suffer willingly. I will serve willingly. And in some ways, right. I think a lot of the.
That's, in a way, turning from that sense of, no, I will not serve. I will not suffer.
For whatever reason, we live in a world filled with suffering. This is the starting point of any reasonable thinking about the world. And so we have to then say what is going to be our attitude. And the attitude of that, I think, has this element of recognizing that we can play a role in the redemption of the world. Right. Colossians 124 is so beautiful.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:50:28] Speaker B: I rejoice in my sufferings, for in them I complete what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. That is, for the Church, his body. Right? So Christ's sufferings are perfect and complete in themselves, but in a way, their application to, well, me is not yet perfect, and their application to others is not yet perfect.
And I think whenever we suffer, it's kind of isolating. We feel alone. We want to be comforted. And that sense that maybe we need to, maybe that's a way we can start is if you want to be friends with our guardian angel, let our guardian angel comfort us. Let our guardian angel comfort us. Maybe write down what are the five things that I am suffering now? What are the five things that I'm resenting now?
And ask our guardian angel just to be with us and help us to turn those over. So we are running out of time. So you've been on our show before, so we won't do all three questions, but why don't you tell us what's a book you're reading?
[00:51:28] Speaker A: I'm actually reading through Peter Creef's Children of Socrates, which is a four volume work of the hundred greatest philosophers.
I'm just in volume three, we're going through Descartes and Liebnitz and Spinoza and everything else, and just what happens when we get our minds out of proper humility to revelation? It's such an unfortunate tragedy, but it's rationalism against revelation instead of the humble mind that says thanks be to God for revelation and even Eucharistic adoration when you're bending your head in prayer to a mind and heart beyond ours. So anyway, going through that series, I find it to be an excellent summary.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Professor Miravali. It's been great to have you on our show. For listeners who are interested, you can certainly go back and find the episode on Mary, and that is a wonderful one. It was very encouraging and I enjoyed it. And thanks again for just listening with us and trying to think through and recover the great place in our faith that the angels play. So thanks again, Mark, for being on our show.
[00:52:42] Speaker A: My pleasure. Michael Kaplas, thank you so much for.
[00:52:46] Speaker C: Joining us for this podcast. If you like this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want take the next step, please consider joining our Annunciation circle so we can continue to bring you more free content.
We'll see you next time on the Catholic Theology show.
