Man - His Body and Soul

There are two substances of which all creation consists, matter and spirit. They form two diverse and apparently incompatible worlds; but in man they are united. The human body is of the earth, but is the most perfect of earthly productions. It stands upright, as if facing God and asserting its dominion over the rest of creation. The brain and nervous system are far more perfect than in other animals. The hand is a marvel of adaptability, and has been the instrument of human progress; the horse's hoof, the fish's fin, the end of the bird's wing are similar in structure, but how different in their capacity for use. The bones, the veins, the internal mechanism of heart and lungs, everything in fact is of the highest degree of elaboration. Much more beautiful than the bodily frame is the countenance, when it is the index of a pure and benevolent mind. Matter is glorified by being made part of the substance of those who are images of God. Above all, the human body was glorified by being united to the Divinity, when the Son of God took our nature from the most blessed of the daughters of Adam. Thus even your body is worthy of admiration and reverence. Remember its dignity, and never let it be the abode of sin and Satan. Maintain it in the divine likeness, and as the Apostle says: "Glorify and bear God in your body"  (1 Cor. vi. 20).

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The Mystical Senses of the Seven Days

The operations of God in the seven epochs of creation are a figure of His spiritual operations in the human race. The chaos of the first day and its darkness represent the state of mankind before the giving of the Jewish dispensation. There was no religious organization, and depravity was universal. The first dim light of that day is the law of nature, called by David the light of God's countenance (Ps. iv. 7). The creation of the firmament and separation of the waters is the segregation of the people of Israel from the Gentiles; for waters signify people (Apoc. xvii. 15). The rising of the dry land and its covering with vegetation are the rise of the Jewish nation into prominence, and its adornment with the holy lives of its heroes. The sun is Our Lord Jesus Christ; the moon and planets which reflect Him are the Blessed Virgin, the Church, and the Saints. The production of life from the waters is a figure of the new birth from the waters of Baptism. The different creatures of the fifth and sixth days are the souls which soar aloft to heaven like the birds, those which remain of the earth earthy, those which grovel in the slime like the reptiles, and the wild beasts are Antichrist and other persecutors. All of these are subdued by the Man made in the image of God, Jesus Christ His Son. The Sabbath is our final rest in heaven. Praise God for all the wonderful works of this mystical creation.

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The Seventh Day

"On the seventh day God ended the work which He had made" (Gen. ii. 2). He ended it in the sense that He had now completely equipped the earth for the purpose that it was intended for; and thenceforth it was to work out its destiny under the guidance of man. In another sense that work is not ended; i.e. it has not yet fulfilled the aim and object of its being; and it will not have done so till the end of time, when all the results are summed up and the elect are gathered into eternal happiness. Then the Almighty will pass the final verdict on His work and declare that it is good. The end of the material development of this earth has come; there will be no further days of creation, no superior race of beings to succeed man. Evolution indeed goes on, but it is of a kind now that depends on man's will aided by grace, and not on God alone, It should be an evolution of truth and justice, of the knowledge of God and the perfecting of His likeness in the soul. As this depends on the good-will of man, the result is various: in one line there goes on a development towards eternal life, but there is also an alternative line of deterioration. Each man chooses for himself which he will. In depends on you now to carry on the work of God in your own soul and in others. Go on constantly till you have finished your portion of the task. Imitate the regularity and thoroughness of God, so that He may be able to declare that you and your work are very good.

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The Sixth Day

After the age of the reptiles, there was a long interval not marked by features sufficient to make of it an additional day of creation. The cretaceous beds average one thousand feet in thickness; they consist of the shells and skeletons of myriads of generations of minute animalcule deposited on the bed of the ocean. After being formed and consoli dated during long ages, they slowly rose, till now they form great plains, or hills and cliffs. Then followed the Tertiary epoch, when new species of animals began to appear, the forerunners of existing races, marsupials and mammals. Some of these have flourished, extended widely and become extinct. Such were the Megatherium, eighteen feet in length, the Palaeotherium, a compound of rhinoceros, horse and tapir, and the Mammoth. Other species have lasted, more or less modified, into our times. The length of these periods is beyond our computation: we only know that it was enormous. Thus did God carefully, slowly, with enormous power and wisdom, prepare this world during millions of years to be your habitation. You have now to prepare your soul through countless thoughts and actions to be His dwelling.

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The Fifth Day

The fifth day of Moses introduces us into new and almost unexplored realms of wonder. Animal life is here mentioned for the first time. This however was not its first commencement. Scripture indicates the infusion of the primitive germs of life on the first day; and in accordance with this, we find fossil evidence of marine life from a very early date. It would appear that the sea was amply peopled as far back as the Devonian era, many hundred thousand years before the fifth day. This is not mentioned by Moses. He speaks only of the more striking and distinct features of creation, such as would have come under the notice of a contemporary observer, such as he felt himself to be during the series of his visions. Notwithstanding the shoals of fish hidden beneath the ocean surface, and a few insects and air-breathing reptiles, this globe was still, to the eye, an unpeopled waste. Now the bright sunshine and limpid atmosphere made the earth rejoice; there was a great outburst of life, and strange new species of creatures suited to the changed conditions sprang into existence. Until a few years ago the passage in Genesis was the only record existing of a most wonderful and quite hidden episode of creation. Geology has now brought to light the skeletons of the animals that Moses saw in vision, and has corroborated every detail of his narrative. Men change, and their ideas, and their science; but the word of the Lord abides for ever. Events always justify those who walk by faith in that word. Have patience, and in due course God will give you light.

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The Fourth Day

On the fourth day, Moses, viewing creation in vision as if from the surface of the earth, according to probability, saw a new revelation of divine greatness, when the expanse of the heavens was opened to him, illumined by sun, and moon, and planets, and the millions of more distant stars. His description is that of an eye-witness, and not of an investigator who goes behind the visible fact. It does not mean that the celestial world was created from nothing at this epoch, nor that it was formed from pre-existing matter at this epoch, but that it appeared in existence for the first time to the visionary spectator. The heavenly bodies were not actually made on this day, for the outer planets of our system were cast off from the revolving nebular mass before our earth; and the glowing matter was probably far advanced in the process of condensation into the sun, even if it had not already formed it, at the epoch when Moses takes up the story of the earth on the first day. The glimmering light of the first three days was probably that of the sun, which could only penetrate dimly through the heavy curtain of vapour round the earth. The actual event of the fourth day, the day that succeeded the Carboniferous period of the great vegetation, was the clearing away of the thick layer of gas and aqueous vapour which had for so many years obscured the heavens, the visible appearance of the sun, and the commencement of the order of days and seasons. Geology witnesses to this. The closer texture of plants, their greater variety, and the appearance of season rings in trees, show that sunshine, as we know it, began only at this advanced period of the earth's development. God is hidden from many men by the voluntary clouds of prejudice and worldliness. Because they cannot see Him they profess disbelief. But He is there all the same.

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The Third Day

How wonderful is this gradual progress from stage to stage, during the slow lapse of millions of years, without effort, without error, without the need of interferences and rectifications of the plan and of the laws laid down at first by the great Creator! All was foreseen, all was decreed, and all came about in due course through the action of the irresistible will of God. Do not dare to oppose that calm, eternal, universal, overwhelming force.

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The Second Day

On the second day "God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament from those that were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven" (Gen. i. 7, 8). By the "firmament" the Jews understood what we call the atmosphere. Here Moses accurately describes a most important operation that took place early in the earth's history. At that epoch there was a seething indescribable mass of matter, shrouded in thick poisonous vapours of carbonic-acid gas, which made life impossible for breathing creatures. The forms of life belonging to this geological period include no air-breathing animals. In order to prepare the earth to be the abode of higher creatures, the next step was to dispose of this poisonous gas, and to combine the proper gases into air and water. The formation of the atmosphere extended through this and the following day, but the two stages in which it was accomplished were so different that they may well be considered as different epochs, according to the arrangement of the Mosaic narrative. The work of this second day was the condensation of oxygen and hydrogen into water, and the formation of dense clouds by the evaporation of the water under the influence of the still intense heat. Admire the wonderful and gigantic contrivances of nature, i.e., of the Author of nature, by which He brings about His purposes. Equally wonderful, though more hidden, are the spiritual contrivances by which He leads you to salvation.

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The First Day

The word "Creation" means strictly production of being out of nothing; but it is often used in a broader sense as including the subsequent evolution and arrangement of the world which completed it for its purpose. Creative action proper was limited to that enormous antecedent period which is called "in the beginning." Holy Scripture gives no details of this, but only relates the ordering of our planet during geological time. The surmise of St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nyssa to this effect has in modern times received scientific corroboration. It is very probable that Moses saw the history of creation unrolled before him in a vision, or in a succession of visions on different days. He then described his impressions in the language of his day, in a way that would be intelligible to a simple and unlearned race, and he so adapted his account as to make it of religious rather than of scientific import. Glorify God for His goodness in granting such a revelation at the beginning of human history. Without it, mankind would have had no conception of many most important truths till their discovery by scientific research in this present century.

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The Creation of The World

Creation is production out of nothing by God. God is the producer of its substance, life, and movement! You are one atom in it. Take care to keep your place in it and fill it worthily. Avoid sin, which violates the harmony, and breaks the continuity, and cuts you out from your place in that series.

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The Honor Due to The Angels

The Angels of God merit veneration at our hands. In the Old Testament we read of God's servants adoring them or prostrating before them. So did Abraham, and Lot, and Joshua, so also did St. John the Evangelist. We should honour them 

1. for their sanctity, the most beautiful and admirable of all qualities, and more deserving of reverence than intellectual abilities, or strength of character, or wealth, or natural benevolence. 

2. For the benefits we receive from them. God is the source of these, but the angels are His willing agents in these benefactions, and fulfil their part with zeal and affection; they act as our best friends; and our salvation, under God, depends to a considerable extent on the assistance we receive from them. 

3. Their excellence, their high position in the spiritual order, and their resemblance to God claim recognition from us. As we render filial honour to parents, civil honour to magistrates and monarchs, respect to age, to virtue, to talent; so are we bound to render religious honour to those who are the manifestations of the supernatural perfections of the Infinite God. This is a matter of strict duty for you. You must not allow any class of God's creatures to pass without rendering to them what their character demands. Have you always paid due respect to so important a body of your fellow creatures?

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Angels and Men Comparied

In their natural constitution and endowments the angels are far superior to men. The Psalmist, asking what is man or the son of man, answers, "Thou hast made him a little less than the angels" (Ps. viii. 6). They are our superiors even though appointed to be, in a way, our attendants and guards. The angels are more perfect representations than men of the spiritual and intellectual being of the Almighty, so that they are called "the seal of resemblance" (Ez. xxviii. 12). Further, they were created in the immaterial heaven, we on earth. They now see God face to face in His glory; we only in a dark manner by faith. They have the joy of possession, we must have patience in tribulation. They possess a beatified life, our most earnest desire is for a happy death. They live to God, we have to die to the world. They possess perfect justice, we need perfect penance. They have the completion, we the commencement of supernatural life. Therefore we may say of the angels as compared with men, "The cedars in the paradise of God were not higher than he . . . neither were the plane trees to be compared to him . . . no tree in the paradise of God was like him in his beauty" (Ez. xxxi. 8). Rejoice in the greatness of these noble beings, without envying them or despising your condition. Look up to them as to elder brethren. Venerate them for their nearness to God and the likeness they bear to Him.

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The Guardian Angels

 

Our Guardian Angels take charge of us from the first instant of our existence, and remain with us through our whole course up to the moment of death. All through life they are at hand to help us in spiritual, and perhaps also in corporal needs, especially in resisting temptation, picking our steps through the embarrassments of life, keeping up our courage, persevering in fidelity to God. They do not abandon us when we fall from grace and make ourselves enemies of God. Our case may seem hopeless to men, but our guardian never loses hope or relaxes in his efforts. To the very end he watches, intercedes for us, and perhaps is able at the last moment to snatch his charge from the jaws of perdition. He accompanies us before the judgment seat of God to render an account of his stewardship, and witness either for or against us. It is generally believed that our guardian is God's messenger of comfort and relief to us in purgatory, and that he will be our comrade and inseparable companion for all eternity.

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The Functions of The Angels

The universal sense of the Christian people has always clung to the beautiful idea of Guardian Angels being appointed by God to every individual child of Adam, to protect them, pray for them, move them to good, and in every way to promote their salvation. This is a manifestation of the grandeur and power of God, in that He is able to assign such a multitude of glorious spirits to the charge of one department of creation. It shows how valuable we are in the sight of God, and what immense love and care He has for us. There are depths of wisdom, as yet inscrutable, in this system by which God sustains us in our conflict with evil, strengthens us against the malice and fearful power of our tempters, and maintains a just balance of forces in the spiritual world. Glorify God for His greatness as shown in the angels; thank Him for His tender care of you; be always mindful of your companion angel.

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The Intercommunion of The Angels

The angels, being pure intelligence, communicate directly and instantaneously, without physical medium, without the waste that accompanies so many transformations of energy, and without the misunderstandings that ensue with us. How sublime must be the speech of the angels ; how much more extended in its range than ours ! As the conversation of the learned surpasses that of the savage, so does the converse of the blessed and the angels surpass that of earth. This alone will be a great source of delight in heaven.

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The Temptations of The Evil Spirits

In nature, God allows all creatures to exercise their proper activities without interference. They may be contradictory to others and may produce catastrophes, but out of it all there proceeds harmony and a higher good. So all spiritual beings are allowed to use their powers according to their free will, whether rightly or perversely. Wrong doing is not visited straightway with extinction, or with restraint of activity or liberty; it plays its part, and is controlled by God to a good end. The forces of right and wrong are allowed to wage an unending strife until the time comes to separate them eternally. As bad men are allowed to live out their full course unhindered, so Satan and his followers remain in the universe where they were to have acted as ministers of God, and there they carry on a work of their own, according to their desires and capacities. Hatred of the supreme good, envy of men who are one day to occupy their places in heaven, fierce pride, malicious love of evil for its own sake, these are their motive forces. They endeavour to thwart the designs of God, to establish a reign of falsehood and vice, to deceive and corrupt men, to turn them against their Creator and lead them to eternal misery. It is fearful to think of our being exposed to conflicts with spirits so malicious and so superior to us. But it is for our advantage; and some day we shall see how much good God has educed from that evil. 

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The Punishment of The Bad Angels

The first and chief punishment of the fallen angels in hell is the pain of loss, the deprivation of God and of all that holds from Him, i.e. of all good. 

They have lost the Beatific Vision, the sight of God in all His love and His beauty. 

They have lost their position of dignity and the company of the blessed. 

Also such supernatural advantages as they had before the trial, including faith, hope and charity. 

Although they retain their natural faculties and powers, yet they have lost the natural happiness which springs from employing these in the natural apprehension and service of God; for God is the only object which can satisfy even the natural faculties and elicit all their activity, and He has been utterly rejected and lost. 

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The Award of The Judge

 

When the trial and conflict of the angels was over, a separation of good and bad took place. The "great dragon was cast out, the old serpent . . . and his angels were thrown down with him" (Apoc. xii. 9). The good angels were confirmed in grace and in the possession of heaven. This involves a summing up of results and a judicial award, a preliminary general judgment of the supramundane universe. In all that was essential, the angels had worked out their destiny and made their final choice for once and all.

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Speculations one the Sin of The Angels

 

It is generally taken for granted that pride was the sin of the angels. It is a sin of the intellect; it is one that accommodates itself to the strongest natures as well as to the meanest; high virtue, and position, and excellence are a direct incentive to it; it seems to disorganize the relation of the creature to its Creator more directly than any other sin. But as to the particular form which pride took in the angels there is much speculation. Some have supposed that it was spiritual luxury, or unbridled delight in themselves, their talents, their dignity, their beauty, without subordination to God. This accords with the Scripture: "Thy heart was lifted up with thy beauty ; thou hast lost thy wisdom in thy beauty" (Ez. xxviii. 17). They would thus be seekers of themselves and their private advantage and pleasure, and not of the glory of God. They would make self the aim of their existence, putting it up as a kind of god in the place of the Supreme Goodness which ought to be the object of all created action, love and service. This form of sin is very prevalent in our experience. Men delight in any excellence, natural or inherited, which they possess, and turn God's gift into a source of continual offence against Him and men. They give themselves full credit for it, and never refer it to its giver or use it for His glory. They worship themselves by reason of it and not God.

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The Sin of The Angels

 

Considering the sin of the angels apart from details, we may safely describe it in general terms as a choice of self instead of God, of independence instead of submission, of their natural conditions, endowments, and satisfactions, instead of those which were attached to the higher, the divine, the supernatural life. This, taking it a little more specifically, may be called the equivalent of a sin of pride; and as such the sin of the angels is usually described by Holy Scripture and by the general consent of the Church. Thus, it is written of the enemy, the emblem of Satan, "He beholdeth every high thing, he is king over all the children of pride" (Job xli. 25). Pride manifests itself under many different forms, and varies in each individual. In the angels it would have the effect, as soon as it was entertained, of destroying at once all that was divine, virtuous and good, and producing an outburst of every kind of deordination and sin. Still we may say, generally speaking, that all the unfaithful angels united in one revolt under their leader against God. Pride is the destruction of all virtue; it is an abomination before God. It attacks all, and its work is secret, swift and fatal. Guard carefully against it.

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The Trial and Conflict of The Angels

All beings aspire to act according to the full capacity of their nature. The service of free beings must be free: i.e., the choice must be given to them to serve or not to serve; in other words, a trial or test is necessary. Further, the sight and possession of God with its infinite delights is not the proper due of angels or men. It has pleased the All-wise to offer this transcendent gift as a reward to be earned by fidelity under trial. As to men, so also to the angels, a period of probation was appointed, in which they could exercise their liberty of choice and make themselves worthy of God. How long it lasted we cannot know. It may have been as long as that of the human race, or it may have been instantaneous. There was no need for a lengthy trial; in the angelic nature there is no struggle between heterogeneous components, no clouding of mind by matter; the intelligence is prompt and clear, the will is precise and unwavering. With the angels there was no perturbing influence, no inheritance of perversity to be allowed for, such as make the sins and errors of men more excusable and pardonable. They could grasp at once all the aspects of the question; they could have no need of reconsideration; there was no room in them for repentance. The substantial fact remains that they were needs tested as we are. To them was applied the "golden reed" or scale, "the measure of a man which is of an angel" (Apoc. xxi. 17), the option between the life of mere nature independent of God, or submission to God with supernatural life. Your whole life on earth is arranged simply for the solution of this question. Every act of yours contributes towards it.

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