God leads us past the angels to himself; Angels: Day 188

The angels are immortal and blessed, says St. Augustine, but it’s not their nature that we will share in Heaven. By becoming a man, God leads us to share the nature of  the Trinity, which is the very source of  the angels’ immortality and blessedness.

I do not say that Christ is Mediator because he is the Word, for as the Word he is supremely blessed and supremely immortal, and therefore far from miserable mortals. But he is Mediator because he is man. By his humanity he shows us that we need not seek other mediators to lead us step by step to that blessed and beatific good, but that the blessed and beatific God, having himself become a partaker of our humanity, has given us ready access to participation in his divinity. In delivering us from our mortality and misery, he does not lead us to the immortal and blessed angels, so that we should become immortal and blessed by participating in their nature, but he leads us straight to that Trinity, by partici- pating in which the angels themselves are blessed.

Therefore, when Christ chose to be in the form of a servant, and lower than the angels, so that he might be our Mediator, he remained higher than the angels, in the form of God—who is himself at once the way of life on earth and life itself in Heaven.

–St. Augustine, City of God, 9.15

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

Even the angels in Heaven are blessed only because they participate in the nature of Christ. How do I share the nature of Christ here on earth? Do I serve as He served?

CLOSING PRAYER

Blessed are you, O holy angels, whose charity does not grow weary with our human crimes. We thank you for keeping the earth habitable by always  dwelling within it.

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