The Angels Around Us

     We forget that the devil and his demons are angels - albeit fallen angels.  They have not lost any of the abilities that God created them with, they just no longer use them for good.  They live among us just as surely as the angels who remained in a right relationship with God.  I might also remind you that the devil and his demons were cast down to earth, not to hell.  They are living among us, though we cannot see them.  They see everything we do and they remember it, to use it against us, to tell us we are not worthy of a relationship with God because of our sinfulness.  Do not let them fool you, God's mercy is limitless.

     I forget who the cartoon character was, but he was trying to decide between good and evil and good and evil were depicted by an angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other shoulder.  Of course one of them, the devil, promising fun and the other, the angel of God, promising only boredom and perhaps mockery.

     Hermes, in The Shepherd said, "Every man has close to him two angels, the one an angel of holiness, the other an angel of perversion...and how then, O Lord, shall I recognize the workings of these two since they both dwell within me?"

     I think St. Ignatius of Loyola answers this well enough when he says to look at the end results of our actions - if what we do leads to selfishness, hate, violence or things of evil then its origin is satan and the temptation should be avoided.  If the end result is for good, then the source is God.

     This does not mean we can do something evil knowing that God can bring good out of it (like bringing a new life out of the terrible act of rape or robbing a bank and using the money to feed the poor), but rather, what our intent is meant to be in our action.

     Since evil does not cooperate with love in any way, rest assured that when you enter a church or an adoration chapel (the presence of Jesus) you do so with only one of these angels - which is why it is so efficacious to take everything to our Lord in prayer.

     Jesus, I trust in You!