The Catholic Book Blogger
When asked for advice on dealing with a heretic who claimed to have revelations from angels, St. Augustine gave this sensible advice. If the angel is leading away from Catholic truth, it’s a false angel. But don’t despise him: instead, let him know how much you love him and want him back in the Church.
The Apostle Paul says somewhere that even Satan transforms himself into an angel of light, so it is not strange that his servants should disguise them- selves as ministers of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:13-15). So if your correspondent really did see an angel teaching him error, and wanting to separate Christians from the Catholic unity, he has met an angel of Satan transforming himself into an angel of light. On the other hand, if he has lied to you, and he did not see such a vision, then he himself is a servant of Satan disguising himself as a minister of righteousness.
Yet if he is not completely stubborn and perverse beyond all correction, then if he thinks about what we have said, he may still be delivered from misleading others and from being misled himself. Since you gave me the opportunity, I have met him without any hostility, remembering what the Apostle said about people like him: “Have nothing to do with stupid, senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:23-26). So if I have said anything hard to him, let him know that it does not come from the bitterness of argument, but from love that intensely desires him to come back to the right path. –St. Augustine, Letter 53
IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
How would St. Augustine’s advice help me deal with non-Catholics in my everyday life? How would I help them escape the false angels without getting mired in a “stupid senseless controversy”?
CLOSING PRAYER
Have pity, O Lord God, lest they who pass by trample on the unfledged bird; and send your angel to restore it to its nest, that it may live until it can fly.
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