Train to win the angelic wreath; Angels: Day 287

Writing to Christians facing a sentence of death, Tertullian tells them to think of their hardships as training for victory. You don’t win the star athlete’s wreath without hard work and sweat, and in the spiritual realm the Holy Spirit is their personal trainer, getting them in shape to win a “wreath  of angelic essence.”

Even in peace soldiers get themselves used to war by work and chal- lenges, marching in arms, running over the plain, working at the ditch, drilling in formation, and doing all kinds of hard labor. The sweat of the brow is on every- thing, so that their bodies and minds won’t balk when they have to go from shade to sunshine, from sunshine to icy cold, from the robe of peace to the coat of mail, from silence to noise, from quiet to tumult.

In the same way, blessed ones, think of whatever is hard in this lot of yours as a discipline for your powers of mind and body. You’re about to pass through a noble struggle, in which the living God acts the part of superintendent, in which the Holy Spirit is your trainer, in which the prize is an eternal wreath of angelic essence, citizenship in the Heavens, glory everlasting. Therefore your Master, Jesus Christ, who has anointed you with his Spirit, and led you forth to the arena, has decided, before the day of conflict, to take you from a condition more pleasant in itself, and has imposed a harder treatment on you, so that you might have greater strength.

After all, athletes are set apart to a stricter discipline to build up their physi- cal powers. They’re kept from luxury, from expensive food, from more pleasant drinks. They’re pressed, racked, worn out. The harder they work in the prepara- tory training, the more hope they have of victory. And “they do it to receive a perishable wreath,” as the apostle says (1 Cor. 9:25). We have the eternal wreath in our eye. We look on the prison as our training-ground, so that at the goal of final judgment we may come out well disciplined by many a trial—since virtue is built up by hardships, but destroyed by indulgence in luxury. –Tertullian,  To the Martyrs, 3

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

How would my own training benefit from a little more work and a little less luxury? What little luxuries might I give up to be in better shape for the angelic wreath?

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord, let me labor honorably in your Church as the angels do in Heaven, and may I always keep the needs of the poor, the widows,  and the orphans before my eyes.

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