Living an angel’s life on earth; Angels: Day 281

Living an angel’s life on earth; Angels: Day 281 April 30, 2017

angels_ambrose_1Recalling a holy monk who was well known for his ascetic life, St. Ambrose says that he led an angel’s life on earth—and in doing so became a model for the rest of us.

Now this endurance in holy Eusebius was thriving under the monastic discipline. Because he was used to a stricter rule, he drank in a power of bearing hardships.

I’m positive that, in the higher kinds of Christian devotion, these two things are the most excellent: the clerical function and the monastic rule. The first is trained to be obliging and courteous in its behavior; the second is used to absti- nence and endurance; the one lives as on a theater stage, the other in secret; the one is seen, the other hidden. This is what one noble combatant said: “we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men” (1 Cor. 4:9).

He was truly worthy to have angels as his spectators, when he wrestled that he might attain the prize of Christ, when he struggled to lead an angel’s life on earth, so that he might overcome the wickedness of spirits in Heaven—for he wrestled with spiritual wickedness. The world was right to be a spectator of him whom it was called on to imitate. –St. Ambrose, Letter 63, 71

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

How angelic is my life? What material comforts or possessions most get in the way of my living the life of the angels on earth?

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord, let me imitate the angels who have been well pleasing to you since their creation, and graciously preserve me from the temptations of the world.


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