It’s good to be human; Angels: Day 113

Some heretical writers had said that there would be no bodily resurrection, but that we would be pure spirits like the angels. St. Methodius argues that, if God had wanted us to be angels, he wouldn’t have made us human.

God didn’t make a human being and then—as if he had done it badly, or made a mistake in forming him—decide to make an angel, repenting of his work, as really bad craftsmen do. Nor did he try to make an angel and fail, ending up with a human being instead—that would be a sign of weakness.

Then why did he make human beings and not angels, if he wanted human beings to be angels and not human? Was it because he couldn’t make angels? It would be blasphemy to think so! Or was he so busy making the worse that he dilly- dallied about the better? That’s silly, too. God doesn’t fail in making what is good, and he doesn’t put it off, and he’s not incapable of it. He has the power to act how and when he pleases, since he himself is Power.

So if he originally made us human, it’s because he wanted us to be human.

But if that was what he wanted, then, since God wants the good, to be hu- man is good. –St. Methodius, Discourse on the Resurrection, 1.11

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

God made me human and not an angel for a reason. Am I close to being the human being God had in mind? Or does my will lead me away from God’s original intention for me?

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord, I am weaker than an angel, but you made me weaker because it was good for me to be a human being. Help my weakness through your mercy and the aid of your grace

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