Day and night, Angels: Day 073

02Day and night

St. Gregory the Great sees an image of Satan in the “day”  and “night” that Job curses. Satan is a false day, promising us the light but actually leading us into the darkness of death.

“Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night which said, ‘A man-child is conceived’” ( Job 3:3).

Satan presents himself as the “day,” in that he seduces us with prosperity. And his end is in the darkness of the “night,” because he leads us to adversity. Thus he showed us day when he said, “in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods” (Gen. 3:5). And he brought on the night when he led us to the darkness of mortality.

The day, then, is the promise he gives us of better things, but the night is the experience of evils that actually presents itself. The old enemy is the day, because he was created good by nature; but he is the night, because he is sunk deep down into darkness by his own fault. He is day when he disguises himself as an angel of light in our eyes by promising good things—as Paul confirms, saying, “for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). But he is night when he clouds the minds of those who allow him with the darkness of error. –St. Gregory the Great,  Moralia in Job, 4.6

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

How easily am I led astray by Satan’s promises of prosperity? Do I let the lure of easy money tempt me into doing things my conscience doesn’t like?

CLOSING PRAYER

Father, your angels praise you by day and night without ceasing. Teach me to do the same, with voice, lips, and heart.

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