The story then that comes down to us of the Creation of Stan and the Fall of the Dark Angels is a deceptively simple one. God as His first act of creation creates the angels to know love and serve him. Lucifer (Light bearer) also called 'Son of Morning' or Satan (adversary) is the most beautiful and powerful of the angels. They go into rebellion against God as an act of pride wishing to take the place of God , are defeated by the good loyal angels and are thrust into hell. I think perhaps the moot telling description of the Fall is given by Jesus Himself. Luke 10:18 17The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name." 18And He said to them, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. 19"Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.… There are two things that stand out for me in Christ's description. That Stan's Fall was instantaneous and that secondly the Fallen angels have fallen as low as they could go, for they are referred too as 'Serpents...and scorpions'.
The difficulty I think for us is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and that because the Church, scripture and the saints teach us a little about the devil and angels generally we think we know a lot whereas we know very,very little. It reminds me of a cross word puzzle were a very huge and complex set of questions are asked and we only have a very , very few of the answers are given for us to go on. A for instance is, if God knew before He created them that Satan and the Fallen angels would into rebellion and do such dreadful harm , causing man for instance to Fall and many to be dragged off to hell then why did He create them all in the first place? We have answers and answers to questions like this, but I think the more answers we get the more questions we ask of the Mystery of Iniquity. 2 Thessalonians 2:7 …6And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 7For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;…
I think part of this mystery is revealed in the story of Job and the very name , 'Satan' itself. 'Satan' from the Hebrew means 'Accuser' someone who from the story of Job performs the function of a Public Prosecutor and Tester. Revelation 12:10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
Padraig, I must admit that goose pimples and hair-raising exactly describe my reaction to the devil that confronted me one night back in 1978. I had enough grace-filled wits about me to fend him off by calling on the name of Jesus. I had only recently experienced my key conversion and was a newbie to spiritual warfare. I'm happy he only has done it once and hope the Lord doesn't allow it to be done again! Twas no fun! I'm glad to be consecrated to Our Lady, now; it wasn't the case back then! Safe in the Father's Arms!
I have had read numerous cases of people like you , Terry, who have been attacked by the devil in the immediate post conversion period. The devil, I suppose does not like to be evicted. One I recall was from the Venerable Matt Talbot from Dublin. Matt was an alcoholic for all his adult lie (he got the taste from his old grandmother who was a terrific drinker and used to feed him the stuff from early childhood). Anyhow when Matt tried to get into Church for early mass he could not get past the door he just froze. He tried Church after Church all the same. It took a terrific battle for poor Matt to break the hold. View attachment 2300
Like many of you here I've experienced a few undesirable encounters with evil spirit. I recall many sustained attacks over a period of many consecutive nights. They always followed the same pattern, which I will briefly describe. I would be in bed and then I would become immediately aware of an alien presence. Simultaneous with this would be an awful distorting ringing (only way I can describe it) in my ears that would envelop me as it were. I would be locked frozen with fear (and fully aware of a loathsome reality before me) until I managed to muster the courage to call out (mentally at least) the name of Jesus, Mary and a whole host of saints (not forgetting my defender St Michael). I have only once however (Thank God), endured the awful experience of so-called sleep paralysis. I can assure you this was no naturally occurring phenomenon. Enough said.
Hi Padraig, may I just give you and the other members of the forum my thoughts on satan and the fall. Please forgive me if I am repeating myself. Over the years the Lord has revealed some mysteries to me but I don’t really know if I can articulate them with much clarity. Therefore..... Oh Lord open my lips and my tongue shall announce thy praise. Incline to my aid Oh Lord Oh Lord make haste to help me. Let us pray Come Oh Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of thy Faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit Oh Lord and they shall be created. And thou shall renew the face of the earth. Amen St Joseph friend of the Sacred Heart pray for us. I know some on the forum follow the teachings of Louisa Piccaretta, who gives us such great insight into the Divine Will. To immerse our little will into the Divine Will or better still allow the Divine Will to consume our little will, is truly what all saints have done to lesser and greater degrees. Our free will [I call it the little will] is the greatest gift that God has given us. This magnificent gift is one of the ways God honours us, by allowing us the privilege to freely choose truth, to implement our own autonomy and exercise our own desire for good. The Angels have also been given the beautiful gift of free will and this marvellous gift of the free will is at the core of understanding the fall of satan. When we enter our judgement day, all that we possess goes back to God. These possessions include our soul, body and spirit, intellect, memory, understanding, wisdom our everything, because they all belong to God, they are Gods gifts; Yet our little will is slightly different. God allows us to keep the little will if we chose to. We must be willing to give up the little will and embrace the Divine Will. For only those that do this enter heaven. It is so much more powerful, sacred, sanctifying, holy, and productive to give up our little will and embrace the Divine Will while still living here on this earth. If we chose to keep our little will and not embrace His Divine Will, we have chosen at least purgatory but probably hell. It is our free choice that takes us from God to a place where God is not. And this is exactly what our first parents did in the Garden of Eden. This of course begs the question, who on earth would choose to keep their little will and Why? What God creates is always good. God cannot create other than that which is good and spotless. He cannot create that which is imperfect. All things are good So now let us ponder and consider. God has created a perfect thought [for want of a better word] A perfect image This perfect image is His whole thought His whole thought is perfect A perfect image that reflects Himself in all ways The thought is so perfect that it is veiled in Gods own unknowability So in the beginning when God creates this perfect image; other beings [the Angels] are created to be the beautiful surrounding for this perfect creation that he has created. The Angels hold special qualities that reflect some part of the perfection of His masterpiece. [Like little diamonds that encircle the beautiful centre diamond]. The angels are gifted by His most loving kindness to possess many created gifts themselves; they are given dominions and principalities and reign over other beautiful creations of God. [Just like diamonds might be surrounded by sapphires and rubies and jade]. All is beautiful. However, when God allows His Angels to become aware of His Hidden masterpiece, the one concealed in Gods unknowingness, which is the most pure and humble Virgin Mary the most perfect reflection of all God’s qualities: satan through jealousy and pride, decides to exercise his free will to choose other than truth; so he turned from God to what? Here lies our dilemma in understanding. All that exists is truth there is nothing other than truth. God is truth, is goodness, is love, is eternal, is understanding, is wisdom, is mercy. On the other hand a lie, is an untruth which has no existence. So what happened at that moment of the lie? This lie denounced the truth, therefore denounced God. It took the founder of the lie to a place that could best be described as a void. The lie itself is pride and all forms of evil make their home in the lie. A lie does not and cannot destroy the truth, a lie has no substance but when followed it leads to the destruction of that which followed it. Imagine a void it would be very painful. To be devoid of all that is, must be the epitome of agony, to be thrust into this void with our soul and a body would be the worst pain; Because we were created for greater things than this we were created for love and to be loved. Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us. St Bernard tells us with that it was due to the blessed virgin who was to be His mother that God created the whole world” and St Bonaventure states, that its existence depends on her will. He says addressing her, “the world which thou with God didst form from the beginnings continues to exist at thy will, O most Holy Virgin” the saint adhering in this to the words of proverbs applied by the church to Mary, “I was with Him forming all things “St Bernardine adds that it was for the love of Mary that God did not destroy man after Adam’s sin; ‘He preserved it on account of his most singular love for the blessed Virgin’
Such simple thoughts of utter profoundity. I am not little enough yet to understand them. I wonder if Padre Pio knew Louisa and visited her on her sick bed? I am sure he did by bilocation as he did many other saints. What I would not give to have listened in to their conversations, these two huge saints, what could I not have learnt? One thing Lousia is teaching me is humility. I keep trying to understand and the truth remains ever elusive. Like a little cat trying to catch leaves on an Autumn morning. I think I have the message in my claws and they fly away again. It reminds me of the utter necessity of the Holy Spirit and the grace of Understanding. It reminds me of St Therese of Liseaux. For many years I tried to understand her little way, but never could. Then one day I did at least a little. Life itself had opened my eyes to the jewel within. I just was never small enough to grasp it.
Early in my conversion when I read 'Story of a Soul' I thought St Therese was just lazy, and I resented the fact that she was able to look back on her life and confidently reckon that she hadn't committed any mortal sins - I said to myself - Yeah if I went into a convent at 15 yrs of age I wouldn't have committed any mortal sins either! Have I moved much since then??? Not enough!
But a small sin from a rockstar saint might be graver then all of the sins of a ordinary saints like you and i. The closer you get to Our Lord Jesus Christ... the more the little sins become greater obstacles to unity with God. The road is not easy for rockstar saints. May Gods Will be Done
Here's where I get confused. If the angels were shown Mary the Mother of God before Adam and Eve were created then God had to know man would fall and need a Savior and hence a Mother to prepare the way. Or did this fall happen after Adam and Eve fell? God Bless!
Hi Bernadette, It is a mystery and one that all of us humans find hard to grasp. I look at it this way; God lives outside of time and space. He created both time and space. He is at once, both omnipotent and transcendent. And He lives in the eternal now. Imagine you are the size of an ant and before you is a door that you are now going to walk from one end to the other. As an ant you cannot see much past the first 10 inches, but as a person looking at the door, you can see the ant and the whole of the door in one glance. That’s a very poor analogy for time, space and the eternal now but I hope it helps. We know though the teachings of the Holy Church, that Mary was created first. At the beginning and she was spotless and holy. God created time and space and all that it contains and He rested on the seventh day. After the initial creation all that has happened, has happened on the seventh day. We are living in the seventh day. St Peter tells us,’ that to God, a day can be a thousand years, and a thousand years a day.’ St Peter was saying that to God, time and space does not limit His power. Nothing limits His power or majesty. Gods thoughts are far above mans thoughts and Gods ways are far above mans ways. When we enter heaven all will be revealed. Here on earth He sometimes gives us a glimpse at the enormity and immensity of the truth that He is. But normally we are left to ponder like Our Lady, and to do as St Thomas did and say, My Lord and My God forgive me for my unbelief.
I admit it does kind of puncture my balloon too that these saints kept their robes so clean. Sometimes I think I commit more sin driving in the morning rush hour than some of these these guys did their whole lives. It places them so high up on their pedestal I seem no longer able to relate to them and their lives. But there is such a thing as prevenient grace ,so God gave them a special coating of grace to keep them from getting their robes dirty? Why did he do this? Why did he give it to them and we got to miss out? I think it is a bit like my garden. After Christmas I start to put bulbs down for the summer. I never put the bulbs down that are all the same, no matter how beautiful they are going to come out. I just love a big mix. I guess it the same with God with souls. Some of us he just thought would be the kind of flowers that would look best knocked about a bit. That doesn't necessarily mean we are lesser flowers, just different. As Jesus told St Faustina, The greatest sinners have the greatest demands on my mercy.' No one likes the kid who is smartest in the class..and no one even more so who the kid who gets praised by the teachers for being the best behaved . The immediate reaction of the other kids would be to choke the chump to death. But I can see why such spotless souls to death. But I can see why God would want such spotless souls to plant in his garden. But he wants the ten sins a minute ones too, I suppose for He died for us as well. We are not better of worse , just different. As to the gardening prize giving I suppose we will have to wait till the end of time to see, but my guess is it may not work out in so many ways as we expect. One thing struck me about Our Lady was that when I was talking to her that she was amused by me and really , really liked me. She found me funny. You won't find that in the stories of any of the lives of the saints. All I can say is things may not be ,as far as heaven is concerned exactly as we expect. Maybe not like we expect at all.
On a related point and something we should be thankful to Pope Francis for is that we should all try to overcome the temptation to being miserable Christians. In other words walking about dragging our knuckles with downcast faces as if the faith were some kind of affliction.
I think what Josephite says about outside tie and place is the clue. If we imagine that God knew even before He created us He knew whether or not we would be saved, if we will go to heaven and hell and our place there and every second of our lives...well it just gives me a headache to think about. No doubt its true but sometimes in studying such mysteries mystery leads to mystery and I feel like I am ending up in a maze, going round and round in a circle to no great profit.
A for instance is how can we who have lived all our existence in a state of being within time comprehend a state of being where there is no time? The same goes for a great Fallen Angel like Satan. The most we can kinda of carry with us is a kind of cartoon and the fact we understand the cartoon a little fools us into thinking we understand our enemy. But we just can't. At least not in this life. That should not stop us from trying to a little bit , but I think we have to realise the furthest we are ever going to get is cartoon time. It is just such a big reach.
