Whence have you come?; Angels: Day 116

When Satan appears before the Lord, God asks him, “Whence have you come?” That’s  not because God was ignorant of where Satan had been, says St. Gregory the Great. It’s God’s way of saying that Satan has not been doing his will.

“The Lord said to Satan, ‘Whence have you come?’ Satan answered the Lord, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it’” ( Job 1:7).

Why didn’t he ever say to the elect angels, “Whence have you come?”—but he does ask Satan where he comes from? Certainly we never ask unless we don’t know.

But for God, “not knowing” means condemning. Thus at the last judgment he will say, “I do not know where you come from; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity!” (Luke 13:27). In the same way, when a truthful man refuses to sin by falsehood, we say he doesn’t know how to lie. We don’t mean that he is ignorant if he really wanted to lie, but that he refuses to tell a lie because he loves the truth.

So saying “Whence have you come?” to Satan is condemning his ways as if God didn’t know them. So while Satan is interrogated about where he came from, the elect angels never have to be questioned about where they came from. God knows what they do, since they do it at his own instigation. While they serve his will alone, they can never be unknown to him. –St. Gregory the Great,  Moralia in Job, 2.4-5

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

Does God know where I’m coming from? What should I be doing to avoid being “unknown” the way Satan is?

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord, you know my frailty; deliver me from the evil one and his works, and all his malice and craftiness.

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