Angels are bound to the Gospel: Angels: Day 132

The Donatists were a schismatic sect that called itself the only true Church. St. Augustine warns that no one—not even an angel—can truly preach any gospel but the gospel Christ preached to us.

You were kind enough to tell us about the letter sent to you by a Donatist priest—although, with the spirit of a true Catholic, you hold it in contempt. So, to help you in seeking his welfare (assuming that his folly isn’t incurable), we beg you to forward to him the following reply.

He wrote that an angel had told him to declare to you the episcopal succession of the Christianity of your town—to you, mind you, who hold the Christianity not of your own town only, nor of Africa only, but of the whole world: the Christianity that has been published, and is now published to all nations.

This proves that they don’t think it’s important that they themselves are not ashamed of being cut off, and that they aren’t doing anything to come back to- gether with us while it’s still possible. They’re not happy unless they do their best to cut others off, and bring them to share their own fate, as dried-up branches fit for the flames.

So, even if you had yourself been visited by that angel he says appeared to him (which we think was just a cunning fiction), and even if the angel had said to you the very words he says he was told to say to you—even in that case it would have been your duty to remember the words of the Apostle: “But even if we, or an angel from Heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8). –St. Augustine, Letter 53, 1.1

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

Am I careful to seek the help of the holy angels?  Do I take care to address my angel directly as “my guardian angel” or “Angel of God”?

CLOSING PRAYER

My Guardian Angel, all you holy angels, protect me from the works and the deceptions of malicious spirits.

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