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Life is tough. Nuns are tougher.

Friday, August 10, 2012

They Don't Call Them Angels for Nothing

Sister, this has been on my mind a long while. I think we all taught something like this: "God created the angels. They loved and adored him perfectly. However, God didn't give them free will so he created humans with the gift of free will so that they could choose to love and adore Him. Somewhere along the lines the angel Lucifer's pride got in the way and he became the devil..." How can the devil make the choice to not adore Christ when he has no free will? It's just something that has always confused me.

I should think it wouldPoor little thing. Where were you taught that? One of two things has taken place. Either the person teaching you was inebriated or otherwise incapacitated or you were behind the door when the angel info was discussed.

You weren't behind the door the whole time.  Whoever was teaching you got out this much:  "God created the angels. They loved and adored Him perfectly."  At that point, perhaps you were distracted, as I often was while sitting at my desk as a child.  I used to daydream about martyrdom and working for the OSS to thwart the Nazis and becoming a famous ballerina. I had wide ranging interests.

In any case, you've gone awry. God did give the angels free will. And then Lucifer went awry.

You don't have to take my word for it. For all you know, I am inebriated or otherwise incapacitated. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about angels and free will:
 

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it.

We don't know why God created us, but the general thinking is that God is just so loving that He just had to share His love with even more creatures.

Angels certainly seem to do a lot better with their free will than we do.  Once the Lucifer situation was settled, it seems no other angel has had so much as an unkind thought.

Imagine it! Every one of us has a guardian angel by our sides from the moment we are born until we leave this earthly coil.  We can whine all we want about how difficult it is not to sin and all the while, our guardian angels have to stand by and experience everything we experience. Well...not everything. They don't have to eat or exercise or not exercise. But still.

At the least, I should think they spend a lot of time just wanting to throw up their hands and have the angel equivalent of a double martini. Sit around at the angel saloon and grouse about all the ridiculous neenering and blather they have to sit through on an hourly basis.

"And then, she went off on her sister because her sister is so 'controlling' and picked about everything she did for her mother."

"Wait...isn't the sister the one who spends pretty much every waking minute looking after the mother?"

"Yes."

"Maybe her sister has a better idea of what needs to be done for the mother."

"Ya think?"

"Cheers."

But they don't. Clearly, the "will" part of their free will is stronger than ours. Except for that one time.


6 comments:

Unknown said...

I must have been daydreaming or standing behind the door too. Thanks for the information. God bless the angels.

Cynthia said...

Here is where I get uncomfortable. I just dont understand free will vs predestination. I was taught that God had every single moment mapped out for us. Must be really boring for him, but in any case, here comes the free will part where we choose or not to love Him, but if its already mapped out, how do we have any choice at all? I have a really hard time thinking that I am pre-destined to fail at this or that, or pre-destined to be in purgatory when I die. Whatever I do is already written out, so what's the point of doing anything worth doing? It will get done or not, and I have no control on that.

Unknown said...

"Angels certainly seem to do a lot better with their free will than we do. Once the Lucifer situation was settled, it seems no other angel has had so much as an unkind thought."
I must correct you Sister. There are many more Angels that have left heaven, and the church knows this too. First, The Church teaches ( even the earliest Apostles taught this ) that we are to ask the name of any angel we meet with. ( This must mean that then the Church can compare notes. :) Second, There are many scripture reference to more then one angel gone bad ( The Church has said "It is written that no angel tormenting men and women is a heavenly Angel" therefor who are they that torment men such as in Psalms 35:5-6 "the angel of the LORD chase them, the angel of the LORD persecute them." 1 Samuel 16:14 "¶But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him." ( 2 Peter 2:4 )) there are the angels that appear to men both good and evil. There are examples: ( Genesis 16:7-11 An angel that secretly helps Abram to father a child. ) I know that you were joking a little with that Lucifer situation and I am not mad because of it. The bible also explains that the number of heavenly angels grow as does the number of angels leaving heaven. ( The Church states that there is a Guardian Angel for every one of us on earth. We now know the population of earth during the time of our earliest Apostles by what is online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_host "It is not known how many angels there are but one figure given in Revelation 5:11 for the number of "many angels in a circle around the throne, as well as the living creatures and the elders" was "ten thousand times ten thousand", which would be 100 million." What is earths population now? Now we have proof that Angels multiply as we do. ) Your joke concerning Lucifer's situation simply refers to the old and true attitude that the devil has lost at any game he played. That he is 'as good as chained'. This old school thinking shows up as a sort of joke quite often. One such joke is that "The devil has been slowly loosing the competitive edge in the business of gaining souls to the point he must now say and he sais "Business is down some" and that because his business is down he has less to do." Get it, the devil is doing less because his business is less? Ha, ha! I hate this topic of "good and bad Angel", can you guess why? First read Genesis 32:28 "There, in the darkness, which he thought to be safe, he was assaulted by an 'is{h} (where s{h} is the letter "s" with a "hachek" accent mark on it), a word elsewhere almost always rendered "man." Although this episode is traditionally referred to as Jacob's "wrestling with an angel," the text makes no mention of any mal'ak, the usual word for angel in Hebrew. The identity of Jacob's opponent has been inferred from the fact that *at *the *end of their wrestling, Jacob's opponent blesses him: "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and men [or gods and men] and have prevailed". You only gain respect from those who you beat in a fair fight, and why fight an *Angel? "WE are only a wee bit less then an angel." Let me say, I agree with the Church, No angel that afflicts any one of us is from heaven and good. “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” —Hebrews 1:14 I LOVE THIS BLOG THREAD AND I LOVE MY ANGEL! You make the next move, it is your turn.

Karen said...

Hello sister..i was wondering if there are any congregation to become a nun that accept someone above the age of 30..

Unknown said...

The Visitation nuns in Toledo, Ohio accept women over 30.

Mph said...

You mean some religious orders don't accept people over 30? What's the reasoning behind that?