No one can hurt you; Angels: Day 237

If  you’re a Christian,  says  St. John Chrysostom,  no one can really hurt you—not  even the devil himself. But more than that, you can’t hurt anyone else.

Listen to me! I testify, and proclaim with a loud voice, more piercing even than the sound of a trumpet—and if it were possible to rise up on high and cry aloud, I would not shrink from doing it—no one of all the human beings that inhabit the earth has the power to hurt a Christian.

And why do I say human beings? Not even the evil spirit himself, the tyrant, the devil, can hurt us, unless we injure ourselves. Whatever anyone does against us, he does it in vain. Just as no human being could hurt an angel if he were on earth, so no human being can hurt another human being. And that human being will not be able to hurt another, as long as he is good.

What could be better than this—not to be able to be hurt, and not to be able to hurt another? For not being able to hurt another is just as important as not be- ing able to be hurt. Someone like that is like an angel—in fact, like God. That’s what God is like, except that he is like that by nature, whereas the human being is like that by moral choice. Neither one can be hurt by another, and neither one can hurt another. –St. John Chrysostom, Homily 51 on Acts

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

Am I the sort of Christian who’s really incapable of hurting anyone else—like an angel, or even like God? What hurts have I inflicted that I need to rectify?

CLOSING PRAYER

Guardian Angel, lead me always to desire the good of others the way you always desire my good.

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