September 23, 2006
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~Partying with the Angels~
I read this the other day and I just keep thinking about it. I want to party with the angels!! God Willing I will someday.
On the Love and Humility of God
Beloved children in the Lord, I pray that my poor letter will find you in love, obedience, prayer, and circumspection in everything. Today we celebrate the assembly of all the Heavenly Powers; just think what a festival is taking place in heaven! What hymns! What joy for the angels of God! The holy angels, the guardians of our souls, are celebrating today, and since they are our older brothers, we should share in their joy and grace.They invisibly help us so much! From how many temptations and deaths they deliver us! How many prayers they say for us when they see the face of God! When they stand beside us, they offer each person’s prayers! And when we die, it is they who will help us in the hour of death, and for this reason we should bear a special love toward’s God’s angels. However, it is more advantageous for us to resemble them in their virtues. The holy angels have perfect obedience to the commands of God; they execute His orders with no objections. They have perfect love towards God and men. The angels have undefiled chastity and invincible humility, while their innocence is beyond description.
Other virtues also adorn the angels. If we sincerely love them, if we want to live in the same place that they do, we must compel ourselves to resemble them. The monastic way of life is called the angelic life by the Church Fathers. This is because monastics must live a life similar to the angels. However, when they do not live like that, but live a life contrary to it, they will be ranked with the evil angels.Struggle, my children, my joy and consolation, so that you attain the angels’ level of obedience, love, prayer, and chastity, and so that you may also live together with the angels in the life after death! Amen; so be it.
Comments (2)
I’m so glad you posted this. As a teenager in a Catholic high school, I was taught that angels were really just a fiction, something made up to comfort small children, and of all of Orthodoxy’s teachings, a relationship with the angels is still the hardest for me to grasp. So thanks for your notes above.
beautiful. I disagree with the whole angel thing as it has been represented in the last twenty years here, but real angels that are strong and fight back evil and bring messages from God……….that’s a beautiful story.