Peace, Penitence, and Prayer

The second of October is the memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels. One of the first prayers Catholics (and others) learn: 

Angel of God, my Guardian dear, / to whom God’s love entrusts me here, / Ever this day be at my side, / To light, to guard, to rule, to guide.

That God creates a custom pure-spirit protector for human beings is not a mandatory Catholic belief, but it is not a mere fable either. Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition refer to angels who gaze upon the heavenly Father’s face (Mt 18:10), yet have enough eyes to look out for us—more eyes than a mother, a teacher, or a nun.

Writer Mary Farrow penned a fantastic piece on Guardian Angels, quoting a professor who quoted a Cardinal on Guardian Angels’ three main areas of interest concerning us: peace, penitence, and prayer. When they’re successful, the universe is better off, because, according to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, angels govern the processes of the entire universe, in ways known and unknown.

Since the more recent sexual abuse reports, many dioceses, including our own, have resorted to praying the Prayer to St. Michael after Mass (his feast was observed recently—29 September), hearkening back to a series of prayers once recited after every “Low” (recited) Mass. The series became known as the Leonine Prayers because Pope Leo XIII introduced them in 1884. They were discontinued in 1965, but in some places they’re making a comeback. Unofficially, they were for the conversion of Russia, but they have 1,001 uses.

Archangel Michael has the pleasant job of “casti[ng] into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.” The name Michael is Hebrew for “Who is like God,” because Satan wants to be like God and Michael reminds him he can’t be. Like Michael, however, Satan is a powerful pure spirit, except Satan devotes his towering intellect and will to diminishing people’s peace, penitence, and prayer.

When prayer and penitence go, peace follows suit. When priests stop praying, they start predating. When they stop repenting of their prideful, greedy, and lustful choices, their various victims lose peace. So we appreciate all the more St. Michael and his minions. 

Of course priests aren’t the only ones who entertain the deadly sins enough that temptations lead to actions: whosoever qualifies for a guardian angel, sure as heaven needs one.

I mentioned to a parishioner that today’s readings concerned marriage and the parishioner said, “I had a joke for you on that, but I forgot it.” It may be indiscreet to mention the parishioner’s name, but I will say it rhymes with “Snarl Tarzan.”

What’s no joke is the current situation of marriage and family life— though to be honest, it wasn’t always taken seriously in biblical times either. Why else would Moses have proposed conditions for divorce? Why else would Jesus have gone off as He did about the Creator’s intention for marriage? The evil spirits still prowl around the world seeking the ruin of souls. They prowl for bodies as well, because, as long as people are living, bodies and souls are together.

Since this diocesan Year of Real Presence began, I‘ve been considering how Jesus’ words, “This is My Body,” apply to every aspect of human life, including how we speak them sinfully. The many forms of self-worship drive people from God, from each other, and within themselves. What God has joined, let no one put asunder.

Commentators have noted the proximity of Jesus’ words on marriage to those on children. We connect angels with children often enough (cf. Mt 18:10). We also think of dead people, but they’re not angels either. None of us is. People often say, “I’m no angel,” when they want to excuse themselves from sin. 

We have to look somewhere for the root of our malady. When individuals go sour, marriages and families (and more) go sour. That’s no judgment on anyone, because God and the person know best. God’s always honest to us, but we’re not always honest to God.

Satan the home-wrecker wants to interrupt our awareness of God’s Presence with temptations, and he really wants us to interrupt our actions with sins. (Temptations aren’t sins, remember!) Satan wants peace, penitence, and prayer to end. He wants to harm children and the adults they become, and he will encourage us to find ways to do that. He wants bodies and souls to break up in one way or another.

The Temptation Triangle

“In my first article, Theophilus…”

I wanted that clause as the incipit for my second (though hopefully not last!) article for the Times News, because in that context it’s the only chance I'd get to riff on the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, attributed to Saint Luke, which he begins by alluding to his “first book,” his Gospel, which detailed the actions and words of Jesus. Commentators understand “Theophilus” (Greek for “lover/beloved of God”) as a personification of anyone who might read what Luke wrote, at least from God’s point of view.

With that out of my system, I can engage in a bit of “l’esprit de l’escalier” (the spirit of the staircase): only at the bottom of the stairs, when I’ve left the party, have I thought of a better thing to say. This article seems perfect for the First Sunday of Lent, but it wouldn’t get to press for the appropriate clergy column. However, I’m relieved to note the themes expressed herein apply not just to the entirety of Lent, but like Lent itself does, to the whole disciple’s life.

This year of the Catholic Lectionary cycle features Mark, whose characteristically laconic style compresses Jesus’ wilderness fast to two verses of “just the facts.” So maybe this article would be better for Matthew or Luke’s year in the cycle. But another theme of Lent is heightened awareness of our mortality and our lack of guarantees as to whether we will ever pass this way again. The Muses don’t hang out on street corners just waiting to be picked up.

At last I get around to the point of this second article: an unrecalled source of inspiration moved me to ponder how the temptations of the first Lent correspond to other important realities of the Christian journey. Last year I made of them a graphic of concentric triangles and suspended it from the pulpit as I preached.

Each side of the outermost triangle lists one of the Satanic temptations as St. Matthew narrated them (4:1-11): Turn stones into bread; cast yourself from the Temple and expect to be rescued; receive the world in return for worshipping me. Moving toward the center of the graphic, each successive triangle mentions a corresponding idea or practice. It’s hard to describe, but I won’t retreat now.

When Satan submitted that Jesus should feed Himself in a time of intentional caloric deprivation, he wanted to erode Jesus’ trust in the Father’s wise and loving plan. That’s the aim of the Tempter’s every effort. The goods of this world make a good servant, but a poor master, yet is that not how things normally go for us?

Moving towards the center of the triangles, next we have what theology calls the “triple concupiscence”: the three avenues of temptation, or what I perhaps have coined the docents of the museum of sin: “sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life” (1 John 2:15-17). In brief: the flesh, the world, and the devil. I can’t get away with saying any of these “made” me do what my will doesn’t intend (cf. Romans 7:15-22), but it sure feels that way sometimes.

Thus our first parents encountered the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. Genesis 2:9,16-17). Perhaps God wanted to feed them from it all along, except for their grubby, grabby fingers. Better to have consorted with the “tree of life” (2:9), but the former’s fruit seemed “good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6, the sides of the next triangle). See now why it’s not good for the man or woman to be alone?

Lent calls Christians to intensify the disciplines, not surprisingly three in number, that make disciples out of the curious crowd. We give them special attention during penitential periods so we may better appreciate their perennial importance in our lives. Jesus directs us to fast, pray, and give alms without fanfare, so that “your Father who sees in secret will repay you” (Matthew 6:4,6, 18).

Incidentally, the venerable option of sprinkling blessed ashes on people’s heads seems to convey the unassuming assumption of penance much more than a big ol’ cross. Then again, Jesus earlier told the crowds to “let their light shine brightly” (Matthew 5:16), so a cross might well convey how loudly His Gospel is meant to live within us. I take to paradoxes the “both-and” approach: letting the light shine is not flickering it like a disco ball.

The next level of triangles collapses into the very core of the graphic, where we find what Saint Paul called “the gift of God that you [Timothy, every God-fearer] have through the imposition of my hands” (2 Timothy 1:6). Paul explains, “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but of”—get ready for another triptych—“power and love and self-control.” For purposes of this meditation I shall reverse the order, and tie it all together:

Turning stone to bread would temporarily quell the lust of the flesh, since the earth-fruit’s “goodness for food” is valid enough. But Jesus spots the bluff, and by His steadfast fasting—an exercise of self-control—steads Himself fast in the Father’s love.

Had Our Lord thrown His Body from the top of the Temple, a fleet of angels would have been at the ready. But the eyes didn’t have it, however pleasing was the prospect of divine daring. What a show it would have been, if only to Himself! Jesus rather gives Himself sacrificially, as Love does, not for the likes or retweets but for God’s glory and honor—and again, not surprisingly, for the fulfillment of His own mission: divine direction always promotes human flourishing.

Scarcely thwarted by human fidelity, ever hoping to disprove it as with Job (1:9-11), Satan suggested Jesus bow before him, offering a large reward at a larger price. But the King and Center of all hearts knows the Prince of This World has not his day, but only his hour. Without pride, therefore, Jesus denies the devil. Why pick a fruit desirable for gaining wisdom when You have all the wisdom to be had? The power of prayer is Jesus’ connection to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

In His sacred humanity, God the Son learned to maintain this bond through the loving example of Mary and Joseph. It is not infused in us, although we do well to recall how ardently we must abide with those who “imposed hands” on us—those whose spiritual, emotional, and even physical proximity fostered our faith. Their involvement eventually enables us to walk with confidence in the Way of Christ.

Even so, “sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master” (Genesis 4:7). No rest for the weary, as they say, except with the Spirit that God humanly entrusted to and through you.