The answer is found in prayer, fostering spiritual realities
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
How do angels fight?
This week, we celebrate the feast of the Archangels on Sept. 29, as well as the feast of the Guardian Angels on Oct. 2. We know these angels protect us. And Scripture tells us: “War broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail” (Revelation 12).
But we also know that angels are purely spiritual creatures (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 330). So it makes me wonder: What does a purely spiritual battle entail?
I’m not actually interested in metaphysical speculation here — as though we were debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. No, I’m interested in a very practical question: What does spiritual battle entail for us, and how do we engage it more deliberately?
Part of that spiritual battle certainly pertains to prayer. Padre Pio, after all, sometimes referred to his rosary as a “weapon.”
But I think our attitudes, as well, are a spiritual battleground that requires our attention.
At the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, the angel Gabriel appears to both Mary and Zechariah to announce a coming birth. Both ask the same question: How can this be? But Zechariah’s “how” is rooted in disbelief, while Mary’s “how” is rooted in humility. The angel Gabriel, as a pure spirit, immediately “sees” the invisible attitude and responds to each accordingly: to Mary’s attitude with reassurance and to Zechariah’s with a rebuke.
We sometimes think that we can foster any attitude we want toward the world, politics and each other. But I think that’s a mistake: The attitude itself is a spiritual battleground and affects the world. The angels see into us, just as well as they saw into Mary and Zechariah.
This is where the beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew can be a great help to us. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” and “Blessed are the clean of heart.” Those refer to interior, spiritual realities. Fostering those spiritual realities is part of our battleground.
This week, we hear the prophet Baruch foster the shame of the Israelites. But there’s a key distinction: Healthy shame is a response to the knowledge that “I have done something wrong,” while toxic shame is the mistaken belief that “I am something wrong.” Because toxic shame is a mistake, too many people believe that any shame is a mistake. That’s a spiritual battleground, because healthy shame is good for the spiritual life.
We hear this week how Jesus “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.” Jesus didn’t just passively accept that His destiny was in Jerusalem; He resolutely joined His will to His Heavenly Father’s will. That was a spiritual battleground for Him; it is for us, too.
Scientists tell us that the world we can see is made up of realities — particles and forces — that we can’t see. The same is true of the spiritual world.
To be healthy physical creatures, we need to live deliberately and skillfully into the physical world: to eat well, to exercise, to wear our seatbelts, for example.
But we’re also spiritual creatures. As we celebrate the Archangels and the Guardian Angels, it would be good to ponder how we might live more deliberately and skillfully into the realities of the spiritual world.
