Angels and Their Mission

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2SYW29GAMFR00?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

Angels and their Mission by Jean Danielou

This is a comprehensive and insightful survey of angelology from a Catholic perspective.

Reading this book made me realize how much we've lost in our modern world. We have lost quite a bit. Angels are an important subject for Christians. Jesus believed in angels and made angels an essential part of some of his teachings. Jesus's worldview was predicated on a worldview where angels not only existed by were intimately involved in the affairs of men. Every person and every nation had a guardian angel. God delegated his power through angels.

And, yet, angels remained distant. The Bible names only three angels apart from the fallen angel, namely, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael. The Catholic Church discourages Christians from giving names to their guardian angel and, yet, guardian angels watch us and protect us.

Danielou's text is mind-expanding. Here is an example of the wealth of details expressed in a concise way:

“This assistance of the angels with respect to Israel concerns not only the communication of divine goods but also their conservation. St. Hilary speaks of the custodia, the spiritual watch that was entrusted to them. For him, not only is the communication of the Law made by the angels, but even its administration is in their hands.32 Thus, there was an angel who watched over the Law and, until the time of Christ, assured its authentic interpretation. This is also true of the Temple. Origen tells us that the “Ark of the Covenant, and, the mercy seat, the Cherubim, and even the temple itself” were given to Israel through the angels.33 Besides that, an angel watched over the holiness of the Temple. Perhaps it was he who flogged Heliodorus when he tried to force his way into the Holy of Holies.” This angelic protection is accorded the Temple as long as the presence of God abides there and is withdrawn when, at the death of Christ, the Temple becomes a thing of the past and the veil is lifted. Meliton of Sardis alludes to this truth,35 and St. Hilary are is even more explicit: “And then [at the Crucifixion] ... the honor of the veil together with the watch of the protector angel is withdrawn.”

There is a lot in this one paragraph to think about and follow up on.

One thing I was fascinated about was how the early church fathers believed that the Incarnation elevated human status vis a vis the angels. Thus, prior to the Incarnation, humans would bow down to angels, while afterwards, humans were recognized as fellow workers in God's plans with a greater dignity:

“Thus, the mystery of the Ascension completely amazes the angels of heaven. For what it reveals to them is really a mystery, hidden up to then, an entirely new reality, disconcerting at first glance. The cosmological presentation of the descent and ascent must not deceive us. The true mystery of the Nativity is the self-abasement of the divine Person of the word, a “little lower than the And the true mystery of the Ascension is the exaltation of human nature above all the worlds of the angels. That is the real double mystery which is dramatically represented by the descent and ascent in the midst of the choirs of angels. But this “dramaturgy,” as St. Gregory Nazianzen calls it, must not conceal the reality it bears beneath it. It represents an overthrow of the natural order of things resulting from the revelation of a reality absolutely new and That is why it throws the angels into a state of astonishment.”

And:

“If the mystery of the Nativity inaugurates the work of Christ, that of the Ascension completes it. Just as the angels were entrusted with the secrets of the first, they are the open admirers of the second, after having assisted Christ throughout the interval that separated these two events, from the temptation to the Resurrection. Gregory Nazianzen shows Christ entering into heaven, after having recovered the lost drachma and “calling together the friendly Powers to share His joy with them just as He initiated them to His incarnation.””' And John Chrysostom, speaking of the Ascension, compares the participation of the angels in the two mysteries:
When our Lord was born according to the flesh, the angels, seeing that He was being reconciled with man, cried, “Glory to God in the highest!” Do you want to know how they rejoiced in the Ascension? Listen to the account in the Bible: “They rise and descend continuously.” That is the behavior of those who want to contemplate a very special sight. They want to see the unheard-of spectacle of man appearing in heaven. That is why the angels are constantly showing themselves: when He is born, when He dies, when He rises into heaven.107”

This is not a book of inspirational stories. This is solid theology.

Read it and add a depth to your theology.