“By envy of the devil, death entered the world.”
With this verse, the book of Wisdom (2:24) gives a deep glimpse into the mystery of the Fall. Genesis tells us why Adam and Eve sinned—the deception of the serpent—but it doesn’t say why the serpent would tempt the ancestors of the human race in the first place. Wisdom gives an answer: envy.
However, this answer raises another question. Even the least angel is a creature far superior to a human being. How much more so one of the cherubim like Lucifer? What could man possess that an angel could possibly envy? Certain theologians, starting in the late Middle Ages, offered a possible answer, and it has to do with the devil’s own fall, with the choice that forever separated the good angels from the bad.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (391-395) speaks briefly about the fall of the bad angels, calling it a “free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign” (392). The Catechism assumes an analogy between the fall of the angels and the fall of man, and many theologians posit that as man was tested, so were the angels.
The Catechism does not specify the exact nature of the test, so what follows is a theological speculation, subject always to the final say of the Church. If we ask how the angels were tested, certain late scholastic theologians give a very interesting answer. They suggest that the angels were given a glimpse of God’s intention not only to create humanity but even for the Second Person of the Trinity to become incarnate as man.
The good angels accepted this plan of God. But Lucifer knew his superiority over humanity. If God were to assume the nature of a creature, certainly it would be more fitting for Him to assume an angelic nature. Out of envy about this plan, Lucifer and the angels that followed him decided that they would not worship or serve the Incarnate Word and thus fell.
Certain mystics take this theological opinion a step further. Meditating upon the Woman clothed with the Sun in the book of Revelation, Venerable Maria of Agreda teaches that the angels were given a foreknowledge of the Virgin Mary. They saw her in the mind of God and were informed that the Word would become incarnate through her. The fallen angels chose to reject God because that would have meant serving Mary.
These two opinions on the nature of the angels’ test are, of course, not contradictory. To reject the Incarnate Word is to reject Mary. To reject Mary is to reject the Incarnate Word. I believe (again, subject always to correction by the Church) that the knowledge given to the angels was of the Whole Christ–Head and members. The angels saw that the Word would become incarnate in an immaculate Virgin, and by so doing would call every human being to become united to Him.
This is what the devil could not stand. The thought of beings made of matter, of flesh and blood, raised up through the Incarnation to the dignity of adopted children of God.
All these ideas probably come across as high-flying theological speculations. Why would it matter? If the angels’ test involved a vision of Christ, Head and members, what difference does it make?
Let’s shift our focus a little and look at the angelic test for a moment, not from the point of view of the fallen angels, but of the good angels. The devils fell by choosing not to serve. That implies that the good angels were confirmed in grace because they chose to serve. They saw the place in the economy of the Incarnation in which God was calling them to act, and they accepted that calling with their entire being.
St Michael passed by standing up to the pride and envy of Lucifer. With his cry of “Who is like God?” he became the warrior-protector of the people of God. St Gabriel passed by consenting to be the herald of the Incarnation. St Rafael passed by consenting to bring healing to God’s people on their pilgrim journey to heaven.
And if all the above is true, consider finally our guardian angels. Is it not possible that our angels, they who “always behold the Father’s face” in heaven, were given a vision of the Whole Christ and, in looking at the Body of Christ, they saw you and me? Your angel, shortly after his creation, saw who you are called to be in the Body of Christ, and he pledged his entire being to assist you in that calling.
Your guardian angel passed his moment of trial and became confirmed in grace because he glimpsed who you are supposed to be in God and chose to do everything in his power to bring that vision into reality. His activity never overwhelms the choices of your free will, but he remains ever ready to offer what aid he can. This is who God has called him to be from the beginning of time. How dear indeed should these guardians be to us. Let us always keep ourselves open to their ministry.
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