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God uses the evil angels as his instruments for correcting us, says St. Augustine. The purpose of these punishments is to bring us back to the right path, so that we won’t be condemned forever at the last judgment.
“God is a just judge, strong and patient: is he angry every day?” (Ps. 7:11). What God is judge, but the Lord, who judges the people?
He is just; “he will repay every man for what he has done” (Matt. 16:27).
He is strong, meaning in endurance; though he is all-powerful, for our salva-
tion he even put up with ungodly persecutors.
He is patient; after his resurrection, he did not hurry off right away to punish even those who persecuted him, but put up with them, so that they might at last turn from that ungodliness to salvation. And still he puts up with them, reserving the last penalty for the last judgment, and up to this present time inviting sinners to repentance.
“Is he angry every day?” Perhaps “bringing in anger” would be a better way of putting it than “being angry” (and so we find it in the Greek copies). In other words, the anger with which he punishes is not in him, but in the minds of those ministers who obey the commandments of truth, through whom orders are given right down to the lower ministries, who are called angels of wrath, to punish sin. They delight in the punishment of mortals not for the sake of justice, in which they have no pleasure, but for the sake of malice. God then does not bring in anger every day—that is, he does not collect his ministers for vengeance every day. For now the patience of God invites to repentance: but in the last time, when mor- tals through their hardness and unrepentant hearts have stored up for themselves wrath “on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:5), then he will brandish his sword. –St. Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 7
IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Do I look upon my misfortunes as occasions of conversion? Do I stand with the good angels in everyday skirmishes of spiritual warfare?
CLOSING PRAYER
Holy angels, win me the fortitude to face adversity, to accept chastisement for my sins, and to grow in virtue through the trials that God permits in my life.
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