111. The Beatitudes — First Sermon for the Feast of all Saints

Synopsis — The angels are actively engaged in our behalf — How dear to us should be our guardian angels — How the different choirs of angels are engaged with different states and classes of men.

SEKMON FOR THE FEAST OF ST. MICHAEL AND ALL HOLY

Their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. — Matt, xviii, 10.

This is the blessed feast of the holy angels, and we have seen how it arose from the apparition of St. Michael on Mount Gargano. With what words one may rightly tell of these holy spirits, I do not know, for they have no bodily form, no hands or feet or outward appearance. How can we so much as imagine them? — least of all describe them. Nor is it any wonder we know7 so little of them, for what do we know of our own souls, by which we are constituted human beings? Why wonder, then, that we cannot understand these transcendent angelic beings, whose nobility so far excells all human excellence. Hence it is not of their essential being that we can speak, but only of their work with us. Now their activity among and with us, is conditioned on this : they ever behold us in the mirror of the Godhead, each one of us in his own distinct form and essence. As God acts universally upon us and without distinction of this one or that one, because He is the infinite God, so do the angels act upon each of us separately. God's activity in us is infinitely more noble, and is exclusively His own ; their's is in cooperation with His, as the rays of the sun in the sky distribute its light throughout the earth. Or, again, as the stars give us the reflexion of the sun's light, so do the angels bear the Divine brightness to our souls.

The angels are divided into three hierarchies, and each of these into three choirs. Each hierarchy has its own peculiar office in God's work with us, and its special relation to the three lives wc lead : first, the outward bodily life of the senses ; second, the interior life of intelligence, our reason ; third, the high, Godlike, most hidden and interior man. All of these together are one and the same man, over whom the angels have custody. Each of us has his own special angel, given him in baptism, the angel guardian. He is always with us, sleeping or waking, working or resting, whether we are bad or good. O, if we had nothing else to thank God for, how deeply should we love Him for binding each one of us so fast and firm to such glorious being as an angel of heaven. But, be it remembered, every man has also his particular devil, ever actively scheming against his welfare, just as the angel strives for his salvation. And let me say this: if a man were only wise and diligent, the devil's warfare would serve him better than the angel's care, for without a battle there is no victory.

As to the hierarchies, the lowest is called that of the Angels, pure and simple, who serve us in our outward life, warning, guiding, and helping in the way of virtue and peace with sleepless zeal. Without this guardianship, what calamity, think you, would not fall upon mankind. We should be exposed helplessly to the plots of the malignant demons. Against these the good Angels ever assist us.

Above the Angels are the Archangels, and these are like angelic priests, for their office is to help us to profit by the sacraments of holy Church, especially by the worthy reception of Holy Communion. Above these again stand the order of blessed spirits called the Virtues, ever urging us onward in the practice of various kinds of natural and moral virtues ; and in addition to that, they win us by their secret influence to the practice of the holier virtues of faith, hope and love. Happy are the men who obey their sweet whispers, and who live in familiar friendship with them. To such men the practise of virtue grows so easy and its fruit so delicious as to become, as it were, a part of their very nature. Children, against these good men, the fiends who have fallen from this order of the Virtues, level their fiercest strokes. All their cunning devices are set to work to hinder their salvation ; for they, if they but persevere to the end, will be given the places in that rank of heavenly spirits from which those demons themselves have fallen. The maliginty of these evil spirits is inevitably great, and it works incessantly. We must stand our watch against them with sleepless vigilence; for often times their deadliest scheming takes the form of something good. Especially do they strive to divide and scatter our affections away from God, and to waste them upon a multiplicity of created things. Often enough, when one has reached a state of moderate virtue, the demons will do their utmost to hinder him from advancing to that further state of perfection which God would have him reach. This is a very dangerous condition to him, and the devil is well aware of it : in our times there are more souls thus halted, while God calls them to go forward, than at any previous time. St. Bernard says: "In the way of God, to stand still is to go backward."

In this state of stagnation are all those worldly hearts, who say: We do as many good works as others do, and that amply suffices for us; indeed, we are better than those who pretend to greater perfection; and we will continue in the good ways of those who have gone before us. But when some great trial comes upon these men, then shall we hear their lamentations: it will be shown that they were not as good as they thought they were. The evil spirits will work their fiendish will upon them, and at last lead them away without resistance. The contrary will be the case with fervent spirits, who have hearkened to the counsel of these good Angels. When their trials are passed and gone, they will be found all purified and made holy by them; they will be, as it were, on terms of familiar friendship with those bright spirits, who will continue to conduct them towards a happy end.

Of the other and superior orders in the hierarchy of blessed spirits, we are told that they are given custody over men's intelligence, by which we are raised above all other bodily creatures, and are made like the Angels themselves. They are called the Powers, the Principalities, and the Dominations. These principally assist those men who have made some progress in virtue, aiding them to self mastery, as well over the senses and the outward life as over interior faculties of the soul. By their aid a man can rightly guide his thoughts, and words and deeds, attaining a noble freedom from our naturally vicious inclinations. Thus it is related of St. Francis, that he was given such a mastery over his external nature that when he made up his mind to do any good work, his body seemed instantly to respond and to say: Behold Me before thee, ready to obey. These men are as it were the princes of this world, for they are free from nature's corrupt constraint and subject to no weakness, ruling all movements of their inner and their outer nature according to God.

And when the evil spirits see these souls thus full of power for good, they are devoured with incredible hate; they cannot bear the thought that these shall take the places in heaven they themselves have forfeited.

One can hardly imagine the violence of the temptations they launch against them, the like of which commonplace worldlings have never known. But when these souls are almost driven mad with their trials,, then come the angelic Princes, members of the choir of the Principalities, and rescue them from their enemies: thus the victory is won. After that the fiend molests them no more. The demon's pride is now fatally hurt, and he dreads another conflict with so powerful a foe. And then a mighty angel of that choir called the Powers, becomes active in such a soul. By his means a man's reason becomes so strong, that he is able to detect the treacherous purposes of the demons, a» St. Paul says that neither the mighty ones of this world nor those of hell itself could ever overcome him. After this comes the third hierarchy to do their holy work in the innermost soul, where man is transformed and new made in God.

Of these the first choir is called the Thrones, the second the Cherubim, the third the Seraphim. The first makes a man's inner spirit a royal throne for God. There He rests and dwells and rules with Divine joy ; there He judges and rewards this soul, and guides all its activity, both interior and exterior. Now does such a man become so immovably fixed in his freedom from evil, that scarcely anything is so hard or so enticing, so sweet or so bitter, as to be able to disturb him. As St. Paul says: "I am sure that neither death nor life — nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Bom. viii, 38, 39). A hundred deaths could not move such a soul from God. He is like a man on the point of death, to wThom all honor and shame are alike indifferent, for he is now turned to the other life. So is this interior man always turned with a life and death determination, towards God enthroned in the remotest chamber of his spirit. Peace of soul possesses him under all happenings, for he has the Prince of peace within him; as David said of God: "His place is in peace" (Ps. lxxv, 2). Dear child, may God grant thee this place of peace in thy soul, and may His holy angel help thee to guard it securely from all disturbance. Be silent, avoid men, suffer patiently, and sit down in peace. In all confidence remain at home with thyself, seldom go abroad, keep careful watch over thy thoughts, shrink away from contentions and disturbances ; watch Him who is enthroned within thee all powerful, all glorious. Never let there be the least interruption to His peaceful sway over thee.

And after this the Cherubim take up their part, which is to pour a brilliant light into the soul, casting as it were with quick flashes the tints of the Divine beauty upon that soul. By these Divine gleams of heavenly splendor, the soul is so penetrated with the light of wisdom, that were it necessary it could instruct the whole race of mankind with the brightest teaching. And this enlightenment is given in flashes, ever growing quicker, truer, more splendid, and more certain.

Finally come the burning Seraphim with their blazing fire of love. In an instant these set the soul's depths on fire. Then does a man's love blaze out so wide and so hot, that it enwraps and includes in itself all things whatsoever. He feels as if he would set fire to all men and to all things and consume them with his love — and this feeling comes to him instantaneously. And it is so vehement a fire that he would himself love to be burnt up with love.

All this happens in the inmost depths of the enlightened soul. But yet it is exhibited in both the interior and exterior faculties. These are now Divinely ordered. Such a man is so far detached from affection for earthly things, so virtuous, peaceful and quiet, that not the least imperfection can be noticed in any of his words or acts. And meanwhile he reckons himself as nothing at all. All these marvels of grace, of angelic inter-position in his spirit, seem to him no more his own than if they had been operated in another man a thousand miles distant. He cherishes no attachment whatsoever for all that God does in him or can do — only to God is he given over, and to Him wholly and entirely. He places himself last of all in the entire race of mankind. These souls are the very heaven in which the Divine Spirit dwells, as our text says : "Their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father who is in heaven." May God grant us all the grace to reach this holy state. Amen.