Not coincidentally, during the singing of the cherubic hymn songs, when in the Liturgy we remember the angels, the priest in prayer asks to cleanse his heart of conscience sly, because every adult knows all too well, Yes, conscience can be probed, so she’s a coward. And we are not on the side of lies, we just adapt, try to be tolerant, tolerant, and eventually even the most blatant lies and wild injustice, ready to defend and justify. If you want to know what the angel looks like, don’t look at Baroque portraits for them, even angel ashamed! The angel’s face is the face of a teenager disturbed by lies and injustice.
The Artist Raphael. “Archangel Michael and Satan” (fragment)
- When the Archangel Michael takes the sword
- The world champion on a power extreme Michael Shevlyakov: “My patron, the Archangel”
- Archangel Michael – the chief militiaman, or “All men are crazy about me”
- Michaelmas in 2018 — November 21
Archimandrite Savva (Maruko)
In my youth I have long tormented by the question: why do we need angels? Seriously! Is God Incarnate, in whose image man was created. There are saints who have attained deification of the state, the people, are so permeated with God, that here on earth, Shine with uncreated light of the Godhead. The Lord reveals His secrets to the elect, and He can do and complete without any intermediaries, then why need any additional office created, arranged in some intricate neo-Platonic hierarchy? Yes, and the names they are tasteless – Thrones, Powers, Beginning – not influenced by whether the folklore and condescension to the ignorant public took it the Fathers?
My confusion fueled and speech patterns were circulating among the believers, “patience”, “angelic appearance”, “angel face”, “angel”. And the icons – images of effeminate boys that sword even as follows can not keep.
It turned out, I’m not alone. The employee complained to his godson:
– Alyosha, you behave yourself, and you’ll look like an angel.
I don’t want to be an angel! Angels girls!
And when we had to turn angels in girls? How come that the biblical ontrace spirits that scared her a view of the ancient patriarchs, came in the salon Cavaliers? Because the angels of the Bible, indeed, terrible! Do not have to remember the old Covenant with its cherubim and flaming swords, open the Apocalypse – the creation of anyone, but not genomica youths!
The angel of intolerance
The Archangel Michael is mentioned only a few times in Scripture and every time it’s scenes of struggle and confrontation. The prophet Daniel, in the book that even reread scary, Michael – angel and protector of the Jewish people, who fights against the Prince-the angel of Persia (Dan. 10:13; 12:1). In Jude he disputes with the devil over body of Moses (Jude. 9). And the creepiest scene in the Apocalypse – the battle of Michael with the dragon (Rev. 12:7).
Rubens. “The death of the army Sinakherib”
No one have the desire to call the angels of the Apocalypse angels. This terrible warriors who unhesitatingly pour out the bowls of wrath on the defiled land. They bring suffering – exactly! And this is one of the many ministries of the angels. They have a very tough job! The Lord calls angels are the reaperswho will be first, in whose hands we will go after we die:
Will the Son of man send His Angels, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. And shall cast them into Pesi fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 13:41-42).
– Though it is the word of the gospel, but sounds like something is not according to the gospel. After all, God is love, kindness and humanity! Christ is mercy itself, and then such cruelty and intolerance!
– Yes, it is intolerance! Angels are the embodiment of intolerance, and that they are precious to us, and so we need them!
Angel fight
In some time – though historians will say when! Christian morality is entirely focused on the morality of sex, got so wrapped up in these questions that identified Holiness with the Holiness of celibacy, and the purity of virginal innocence, and the angels as incorporeal spirits better suited to the role of icons plaintiffs sex and family life. Of course, I greatly simplify and coarsen, although not questioning the importance of such truly sacred virtues as chastity and virginity, which so grieves our time. I just want to say that the angels is not about chastity or not just about chastity.
Archangel Michael – the angel fight! But not for the purity of the flesh! His struggle as the struggle of every Christian, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12).
Who is he, the enemy of the Archangel Michael? The devil, the accuser, the father of lies. So it certifies the Savior:
He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth; for there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, speaketh of his own; for he is a liar and the father of lies (Jn. 8:44).
The Archangel Michael and all angel’s Cathedral – the Ministers of truth, so the world of disembodied spirits forever split into two camps – the Ministers of truth and the minions of the lie. And I think it’s most important that we should know about angels.
The era of debauchery
We discovered a little outrageous about the life of the angelic world. Even the word “angel” speaks only of the functions the service “messenger”, “Herald”, “the postman”. But the fact that it Ministers truth and justice, incredibly supported and encouraged.
– Why it is necessary to focus on this Ministry? Why fidelity to the truth – by the way, something very abstract! – is it important?
– Important! And now, when everyone just drowns in the oceans of lies and dirty manipulation, the angels ‘ help is especially important.
Church people used to call our time the era of debauchery. At the councils and conferences we shake our heads and make crazy hands: children poured so many temptations, they see so much dirt and bad examples!
And this one will not argue! This is a real threat and an objective fact.
However, this debauchery, I think, begins where the children are taught to endure a lie, accept lies, to ignore the hypocrisy and injustice, and if you think that this is a problem only secular society, have to disappoint you.
There are some annoying cross-eyed Church morality, about which he wrote Heinrich Boll in his famous “Letter to a young Catholic.” As a young man he was drafted into the army – the Nazi army! – fought in France and Russia; the best years of his life was crippled by war. But the most painful wound he inflicted a total lie and a lie that without any resistance plunged German society, managed to ignore the misdeeds of the beloved Fuhrer, but for the bell the most offensive was the fact that this epidemic lies not even noticed the Church:
“For me, when I was Your age, writes Belle in 1958, is the primary moral danger was a Treaty that the Vatican was the first state signed with Hitler; it diplomatic recognition entailed a lot more consequences than if today, for example, Bonn recognized East Berlin. Shortly after the conclusion of the Treaty between the Vatican and Hitler was a special chic to go to communion in the form of SA Yes, it has become chic and even fashion, but that’s not the chic and fashion, the fact that there was a certain logic: once in the form of SA to Holy mass, you can safely go into the service and sing: “Let the blood of a Jew (Russian, Polish) squirts under the blade…” Thirty million poles, Russians, Jews died in those years, my dear M.”.
Remember? The Lord called Satan not only father of lies, but a murderer, because any lies, even the innocent, which was accepted, not noticed, not neutralized, will lead to the blood.
Heinrich Boll lamented: how is it that the Church, with its millennial history, with a huge wealth of spiritual experience, with alert watchful monks and theologians, did not see the lies? And it does not work argument “because it’s Catholic, what to expect from them!” Is it in our Church history did not happen like that? And how many more will? And that is why we are so in need of angelic care, the watchful love of truth.
The face of an angel
Not coincidentally, during the singing of the cherubic hymn songs, when in the Liturgy we remember the angels, the priest in prayer asks to cleanse his heart of conscience sly, because every adult knows all too well, Yes, conscience can be probed, so she’s a coward. And we are not on the side of lies, we just adapt, try to be tolerant, tolerant, and so used that, over time, even the most blatant lies and wild injustice, ready to defend and justify.
If you want to know what the angel looks like, don’t look at Baroque portraits for them, even angel ashamed! The angel’s face is the face of a teenager disturbed by lies and injustice.
Spas Awesome Eye. The icon of XIV century
Maybe teenagers really are idiots and extremists, but this incredible sensitivity to the truth – the heritage that is adolescence, and happiness, if a person does not lose this gift. This noble intolerance of lies and injustice inherent in not only children and angels.
The real source of this noble intolerance is the lamb of the Apocalypse, whose eyes so clearly and frighteningly conveys the image of “Saviour furious Eye”. Yes, the King of Righteousness as sentimental and candy, not unctuous-whispering and alive and fighting, the winner of death and hell, the patron of orphans and oppressed.
Do we need angels? Why call them prayers? I have nothing to ask. But I really need their help, so as not to stumble, not to get carried away with lies and cowardice, because if a strong and sturdy fall, to rely on us?