I received an e-reader as a gift and was downloading The Liturgical Year by Dom Guéranger and these words, written by Gary Potter, from the introduction of the Loreto Publication’s version reveal a keen understanding of history and the splitting of the spiritual from the material in the minds of men:
There is a dimension of the work that can surprise the American reader. Political is the only fit word for that dimension. This is to speak of politics, not in terms of parties or elections, but simply as the means whereby the life of a society is regulated or governed. Dom Guéranger believed the means should be Christian because he believed society itself should be. We Americans may believe our society is fundamentally Christian, or used to be, but every schoolboy knows we have never had Christian government. That would be exclusionarу.
As a consequence, we [contend] that the real target of modern revolutionaries, whether in France in 1789 or Russia in 1917, has been the Christian Faith – that they have overthrown governments in order to get at it. Dom Guéranger knew this view was wrong, that it was backwards. He saw what had really happened: that the revolutionaries began their march to power in the 18th century by first undermining religious belief, including belief in the very existence of God and, above all, His Incarnation, in order to dethrone Christ as King of Society. The Christian political order, not the Christian religion, was their real target. They were determined to replace Christ with themselves. Instead of Christian government, there would be government according to their lights.
“THE Church of Christ, the faithful depository of the teaching of Divine Wisdom, cannot and does not think of deprecating or disdaining the particular characteristics which each people, with jealous and intelligible pride, cherishes and retains as a precious heritage.
[…]
“Nor is there any fear lest the consciousness of universal brotherhood aroused by the teaching of Christianity, and the spirit which it inspires, be in contrast with love of traditions or the glories of one’s fatherland, or impede the progress of prosperity or legitimate interests.For that same Christianity teaches that in the exercise of charity we must follow a God-given order, yielding the place of honor in our affections and good works to those who are bound to us by special ties.Nay, the Divine Master Himself gave an example of this preference for His Own country and fatherland, as He wept over the coming destruction of the Holy City.” [bold added]
“THE Lily of the valley asks but a single dewdrop, which for one night shall rest in its cup, hidden from all human eyes. But when the shadows shall begin to fade, when the Flower of the field shall have become the Sun of Justice, then the dewdrop — the humble sharer of His exile — will rise up to Him as love’s vapour. He will shed on her a ray of His light, and before the whole court of Heaven she will shine eternally like a precious pearl, a dazzling mirror of the Divine Sun.”
“SOMETIMES, when I read spiritual treatises, in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles in the way and a host of illusions round it, my poor little mind grows very soon weary. I close the learned book, which leaves my head muddled and my heart parched, and I take up the Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous, a single word opens up infinite horizons to my soul, perfection seems easy; I see it is enough to realize one’s nothingness and give oneself wholly, like a child, into the arms of the good God.”
ONE way to destroy sacred mysteries is to cloak them in an excess of feeling.
The doctrine of guardian angels has been subjected to this phenomenon of sentimentality, partly in an effort to appeal to children, who are instinctively drawn to angels. But it’s adults who have made it drippy and superstitious. (See lots of examples of this on Youtube if you look up angel hymns.) Too much feeling is just as bad as too little.
One must tread very carefully around the subject of angels because of how much it has been abused by statuettes of cherubs and other inferior artworks, which tend to make angels less majestic, beautiful and awe-inspiring than they are.
It is not true that the angel is here only to comfort. The love of the guardian angel for the human being is not unconditional. “It is to be feared that the angels, who are at present our guardians, will become our accusers at the day of judgment,” said St. Aloysius Gonzaga.
And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall He sit upon the seat of His majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before Him, and He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left. Matthew 25:31-32 [bold added]
Beneath the sentimentality lurks vanity — the belief that we will soar to heaven someday with our angel by our side because we are just so darn wonderful. The painting above by Domenico Fetti, The Guardian Angel Protecting a Child from the Empire of the Demon (1615-18) succeeds in avoiding sugary indulgence, I think. The angel points to what is higher. In the background, you see the enemy in shadow. The angel is beside us to warn.
We can’t fully understand the doctrine of angels and should not expect to in this life. The best way to comprehend it is through prayer, to which the worldly, the sappy, the sentimental and egotistical have little or no attraction whatsoever.
Pray to your guardian angel. “For my angel is with you.” – Bar. vi. 5 Pray that, through his intercessions, he save you from sentimentality’s animalistic attack on the holy and sustaining spirit of reverence that lies within you.
In every lodging, in every nook, have reverence for thine Angel. Dare not to do in his presence what thou wouldst not dare to do in mine. Or dost thou doubt whether he be indeed present, because thou seest him not? What if thou heardest him? What if thou touchedst him? What if thou smelledst him? Behold, not by sight alone is the presence of things made manifest.
THE knowledge that distinct angels watch over individual human beings has existed for thousands of years. Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, said: “He (Marduk) sent a tutelary deity (cherub) of grace to go at my side; in everything that I did, he made my work to succeed.”
In the Bible this doctrine is clearly discernible and its development is well marked. In Genesis 28-29, angels not only act as the executors of God’s wrath against the cities of the plain, but they deliver Lot from danger; in Exodus 12-13, an angel is the appointed leader of the host of Israel, and in 32:34, God says to Moses: “my angel shall go before thee.” At a much later period we have the story of Tobias, which might serve for a commentary on the words of Psalm 90:11: “For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways.” (Cf. Psalm 33:8 and 34:5) Lastly, in Daniel 10 angels are entrusted with the care of particular districts; one is called “prince of the kingdom of the Persians”, and Michael is termed “one of the chief princes”; cf. Deuteronomy 32:8 (Septuagint); and Ecclesiasticus 17:17 (Septuagint). (Source)
This understanding grew through the ages through the aid of divine revelation and apparitions, such as the Guardian Angel who appeared to Tundale the 12th century Irish knight after he fell into unconsciousness. Tundale was never the same again.
Angels, far more intelligent than human beings, are pure spirit and can travel as speedily as our thoughts. They number in the millions, both on earth and in heaven, where they ceaselessly adore God. “The providence of God, always infinitely wise, infinitely holy, and infinitely gracious, vouchsafes to employ superior created beings in the execution of his will in various dispensations towards other inferior creatures.” (Butler’s Lives of the Saints)
St Francis Supported by an Angel, Orazio Gentileschi, c. 1603
From by Fr. Paul O’Sullivan’s book All About the Angels (TAN, 1945):
And another angel came, and stood before the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel. — Apocalypse 8:3-4
(October 2 is the Feast of the Guardian Angels. Every baptized Christian has a guardian angel.)
According to Sacred Scripture there are twelve works of charity which our guardian Angel accomplishes for us.
THE FIRST is to rebuke us for our faults. According to the Book of Judges, chapter 2, verse 1: The Angel of the Lord ascends from Galgala to the place of those weeping and says: I have lead you forth from the land of Egypt . . . And you have not heard my voice.
THE SECOND is to absolve us from the bonds of our sins. According to Book of Acts, chapter 12, verse 7: The Angel stood by . . . and the chains fell from his hands; yet this must be understood as disposing this to happen.
O, Jesus Christ, I adore Thee and I thank Thee for all the graces Thou has given me this day. I offer Thee my sleep and all the moments of this night, and I beseech Thee to keep me without sin, wherefore I put myself within Thy Sacred Side and under the mantle of Our Lady. Let Thy holy angels stand about me and keep me in peace.
“1st. It instructs us by withdrawing from our use and our sight the creatures which surround us. It recalls to our mind the nothingness from which we have sprung, and the darkness of idolatry from which have have been freed by the gospel.
“2d. The night brings us rest and sleep, but it does it gently and with deference, to teach us that all things are made for us, and ourselves for God.
“3d. The night refreshes the air, and preserves the herbs and plants, which would perish if the sun were to remain always above the horizon.
“4th. It secures our lives against wild beasts. These beasts go forth during night to seek their prey, but if there were no night, hunger would force them to go forth during the day, and thus man would be incessantly exposed to their fury.”
FROM Bernard Fay’s Revolution and Freemasonry, 1680-1800 (Little, Brown and Company, 1935):
It was by no means easy for America to break away from England — the only logical center for all colonies of English origin as well as for English people living on all continents.
There were thirteen small settlements separated by such distances that it took three weeks for a letter from Georgia to each Massachusetts; their governments were quite different; there was no unity or uniformity in their administrations, their religious affiliations, their customs and social standards, or even their racial composition.
[…..] Masonry alone undertook to lay the foundation for national unity in America, because, through the very nature of its organization, it could spread throughout all the colonies and work steadily and silently. It created in a limited but very prominent class of people a feeling of American unity without which the American liberty could not have developed — without which there would have been no United States.
THE man who claims to be pope, but is not, speaks approvingly of the principles behind the French Revolution and its notorious massacres and persecutions.
“France has contributed genuine achievements to the world, including the recognition of the “Human Rights” inherent in the nature of the human person, particularly the right to religious freedom.
“This unwavering commitment to the inherent dignity of every human being is reflected in its national motto. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are not merely words inscribed on the pediments of its public buildings, but rather refer to universal ethical imperatives that also find in the Gospel message an inexhaustible source of inspiration and fulfillment.”
“WHAT did Queen Esther? Did she not, to save her people from danger (a beautiful and noble object) put herself in jeopardy of death, and face the anger of the cruel King. The King of the Persians, cruel and violent as he was, nevertheless, thought it seemly to show grace unto him that told him of the plot that was made against him, to free the people from bondage, and to deliver them from death, but not to spare him that had persuaded such iniquity. In the end he went up to the gallows, whom he had held second only to himself, and chiefest among all his friends, because he found himself dishonoured through his false counsels.”
— From the Book On Duties, Bk. iii. ch. 15, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (Source)
NOW in the sun’s new dawning ray,
Lowly of heart, our God we pray
That he from harm may keep us free
In all the deeds this day shall see.
May fear of him our tongues restrain,
Lest strife unguarded speech should stain:
His favouring care our guardian be,
Lest our eyes feed on vanity.
May every heart be pure from sin
And folly find no place therein:
Scant need of food, excess denied,
Wear down in us the body’s pride.
That when the light of day is gone,
And night in course shall follow on.
We, free from cares the world affords,
May chant the praise that is our Lord’s.
All laud to God the Father be,
All praise, Eternal Son, to thee:
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the holy Paraclete.
Amen.
Hence when we hold that she must have universality as an essential note of her truth, we do not mean that she must necessarily exist in every country of the globe, from pole to pole, simultaneously. Neither do we mean that she must have at all times, or at any time, the greater part of the human race enrolled as members of her fold. Neither do we mean that in every period of her history, or in any period of it, it must be clear that in point of numbers she is far ahead of the various heretical and schismatical sects taken collectively. Nor do we mean even that her members must necessarily be more numerous than some individual heresy or schism, which, for the hour, has become particularly rampant and particularly popular. No. Numbers however great, space however wide, duration however long — none of these things singly, nor all of them collectively, can constitute universality in the sense in which it is a necessary note of the one true Church . Universality is rather the transparent medium through which her unity becomes strikingly visible. For it is, we may say, the unity of the Church illustrated and manifested in a sufficiently large and wide sphere, to make that unity a visible, striking, unmistakable proof of truth; since such unity, producing oneness of thought on so large a scale, holding permanently so many people of different times, of different climes, different tongues, different character, in one and the same faith, is something which cannot be accounted for on merely natural grounds, and consequently presupposes the Divine institution of the thing to which it belongs.
Hence, that the Church of Christ be universal, in the sense in which universality is a mark of her truth, it is not necessary that she should be simultaneously and mathematically universal. Her action on the nations of the world is not to be measured by mathematical dimensions: majority of numbers and vastness of territory do not constitute this mark.
It is not impossible that God, whose wise Providence rules all things, might allow one nation after another to lose the faith, in punishment of the abuse of grace — might permit persecution so to cripple her power and thin her children that her sphere would be narrowed within a very much smaller space than that which she now occupies. He might allow Liberalism, Agnosticism, Atheism, to wrench from her bosom as many members as she lost in the great apostasy of the sixteenth century, without her acquiring any New World, where millions of conversions would compensate her for her loss. Such diminution of her numbers, however — such narrowing of her sphere, would not deprive her of that universality which is an essential mark of truth. However small the numbers to which apostasy might reduce her — however narrow the limits within which persecution might confine her, there would still shine on her brow the star that would make it clear that she was the Church of all times and of all nations — her indentity with the Church of the centuries and generations of the past would be clearly discernible; and she would continue ever to be the Church, of which alone it could be said, that she, and she only, had the potentiality of universality — that is, a power that would make her even absolutely universal, if the passions, prejudices, and obstinacy of men did not prevent her from doing so. [bold added]
October 2 is the Feast of the Guardian Angels.
