Paradise Lost and the Sin and Chastisement of the Rebel Angels
“I found myself, as I thought, plunged right into Hell. I realised that it was the Lord’s will that I should see the place which the devils had prepared for me there, and which I had merited for my sin. St Teresa of Avila.
Nine days they fell; confounded Chaos roared,
And felt tenfold confusion in their fall
Hell at last,Yawning received them whole, and on them closed,
Hell their fit habitation fraught with fire
Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain… John Milton
Dia is Muire dhuit. God and Mary to You.
Your listening to the Meditation and Mental Prayer Podcast. Catholics talking to God.
In this episode our meditation will centre on how the Arch-angel Lucifer offended God and the degree of God’s just wrath against him.
We will endeavour to have our mental prayer carry us to the foot of the cross and pray into our relationship of love between us and God’s mercies towards us.
Table of Contents
It is important to Remember
At any time during meditation God calls you deeper into His love, let go and let God. Don’t hold on to material thoughts or thoughts of material situations let your heart love God. Constantly As you meditate apply the meditate the mediation to your life and love of God. “throw your thoughts into God”. You know.
Be aware of your enemy
There is a dangerous character thwarting our journey towards the narrow gate and impeding our struggle to squeeze through that narrow door. You’ve guessed it. it is our arch enemy Satan.
When I call him the devil he seems more like a halloween myth that is hard to believe is real but when I call him satan I’m frightened when I hear him called Lucifer I’m thrown into confusion.
Labeled Lucifer I see him standing out in the heavens the beautiful creation of God shinning like the brightest star in the sky and I know that he knows God better than I do and that bewilders me.
Who is this creature that was once enthroned in heaven with the highest angels. This creature that was so bright and sining that he considered himself to be better than the son of God made man.
We know that Lucifer has a pride and scorn for the Jesus Christ. When he reveals itself in exorcisms he has been known to refer to Our Lord as the weakling.
We gain our knowledge of the Angels both dark and light from different sources:
- From the Bible both the old and new Testaments.
2. From the saints and the fathers of the Church and
3 from exorcisms.
Angels made in the likeness of God
God made angels as pure spirits with intelligence and free will. Psalm 103 v 4 says of God: Who makest thy angels spirits: and thy ministers a burning fire While God Himself is spirit He has no division in His Being. meaning that His Judgement; His beauty; His omniscience and all His other attributes are one fused concept and do not function separately.
On the other hand the angels attributes act as separate functions. They even have a personality.
We can deduce many truths about the character of angels from Psalm 8 verse 6
Thou hast made him (Man) a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour:
Here the bible is talking about mankind and how God has made man,
“a little less than the angels.”
So that tells us a lot.
If we examine the attributes of men we can apply them to the angels and obviously the angels have more attributes than we do because they are not impeded by a physical body.
We know that like us Angels have free will
Job 4:18Behold they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness: So they (angels) have a free will to choose between good and evil and as we know a certain amount of them chose evil.
So the Bible tells us that “In His angels He found wickedness” What was this wickedness? What Isiah describes is a profound pride. A scary if ludicrous arrogance.
Isiah 14: 13
And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north.
I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High.
So what did God do about this rebellion
The answer is in Revelation 12:1 (Apocalypse)
And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world.Rev 12: 1
But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit. Isiah 14 : 15
Jude 1:6 And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations?
Fatima and the vision of hell
At Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary told the three child seers that many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray or make sacrifices for them. In her Memoirs, Sister Lucy describes the vision of hell that Our Lady showed the children at Fatima:
“She opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire.
Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me).
The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.”
Ill read now to you from an old book on the spiritual exercises of st agnatius loyola
Reflections from the spiritual excersises
Reflect on this terrible vengeance of God.
1 God does not temper His judgement any less because there are huge numbers of sinners. If anything He is more angry the more people sin. So there is no point in your thinking that there are so many committing sin that God will forgive you.
2 God’s justice is not influenced by the dignity or high rank of those who he juges so don’t think priest bishops or popes are let off more lightly. In fact they, because they have been given more talents will be judge accordingly.
3 God’s justice pays no regard to the glory and honour Lucifer and the rebel angels could pay him if he were to forgive the and restore their glory. Nope! Straight to Hell with you Satan, don’t even look back! So lets not try to comfort ourselves thinking that God will overlook our sins and rebellion against Him because He needs us to spread His kingdom on earth.
You would be surprised how many people pray for healing and argue with God that He was loosing out on their productivity while they were ill.
God’s justice has no regard to the place which the Angels had occupied until then in his friendship and in his heart. Do not therefore reassure yourself by the past mercies of our Lord.
I was talking to a “born again” protestant who was in the process of ending her marriage and going to live with her boyfriend. I asked her, “What about God?” she answered, “He’ll forgive me.”
God’s strikes without pity because by the time He has got to striking there is no doubt in His mind that it is deserved. and yet it is the first sin of the angels and there only said what one become of you return and to stay with the profit my iniquities are going over my head Sam 37 5
“Because the Lord your God he is the God of gods, and the Lord of lords, a great God and mighty and terrible, who accepteth no person nor taketh bribes.” Dut 10:17
Having meditated upon these things we move into our prayer time. We move to the foot of the cross.
Listen now to the affectionate thoughts of St Bonaventure:
“My God thou has imprinted upon me thy adorable image and for it I have substituted the frightful image of Satan. I see myself more horrible than Lucifer. He fell proudly having no example of Divine vengeance before him.
I after beholding his chastisement have sinned contemptuously. Lucifer was once established in innocence. I have often been restored to innocence.
Satan rose up against his creator who had bestowed upon him his being. I against him who had repaired mine.
Lucifer remains forever fixed in his malice of eternal reprobation. I a sinner I’m ever fleeing from the mercy of God who calls me back.
Satan abandoned a God who let him depart from him.
I fly from God who comes to seek me. Wet both have sinned he yet Sinned against our God and God did not call him to repentance, I on the contrary sinned against God who died to save me.
Colloquy:
Now looking at Jesus on the cross and pray your love for Him. As His friend. Acknowledge your faults. Ask for grace to become more perfect.
End with thanksgiving and make a resolution to do better especially discussing your particular fault.
_____________________________________ ____________________________
