Judges of angels

During one of this week's services, I had some thoughts about evil spirits which I am going to tell you, despite knowing that some readers will print copies as proof of delusion.

Luckily, I believe the beatitudes, so damn the torpedos.

Darkness has been very apparent to me in recent weeks. I used to think it was just a product of nature and nurture, but over time, the personal particularity of evil has become more apparent. As a result, spiritual warfare has become an increasingly significant part of my prayer life.

While praying recently, I thought about 1 Cor 6:3, which says that we will be the judges of angels.

Think about what this means. Not only are we given the authority to cast out through the power of Christ. We are also to be judges.

Judges determine the outcome of the accused.

My understanding is that unlike humans, angelic beings are no longer being created. (Can't remember the biblical foundation for this, will have to dig it up.) Their numbers are therefore limited.

Imagine what would happen if all Christians began not only to pray against the evil working against their friends and family, but also to consign forces of evil to perpetual incarceration.

Would this help bring the kingdom to earth as it is in heaven?

Over time there would be fewer and fewer to wreck havoc in the world, and more and more people would be able to recognize the beauty and truth and light of God. Eventually there would be nothing left but beauty and life.

Like many of my thoughts, this is just a theory. But I like it, and am going to give it a try.

Another beatitude

Desire may be the unspoken beatitude.

Msgr. Krieg on the Beatitudes

Monsignor sayed that he likes to ponder God's delight in us; imagining God saying "Oh, aren't you great..." and reaching out His hand toward us.

He said that when you read the beatitudes you can hear God replacing "Blessed art thou" in each line with "Aren't you wonderful!"

Isn't that lovely?

Blessed are they

The beatitudes are endlessly comforting.

Blessed are they...

The path of life is suffering, for one and all. For the secular, suffering is seemingly meaningless, often leading to despair. For the Christian, suffering is the promise of the cross.

For Christ tells us that we are blessed through it.

Particularly blessed.
Specifically blessed.
Magnificently blessed.

Christ has a magnificent story mapped out for each of us, and he watches to see how we choose to respond to and participate in it. Will we rise to the challenge? Will we fight and resist? Will we be beaten down by a reality we would prefer to reject?

Or will we turn toward it, bare our breast to the sword, and embrace the little deaths that are the price of everlasting life?

Blessed are they...

I find comfort in the certainty that while Christ readily accepted the cross that was His to carry, He most certainly did not enjoy it. And I am not called to enjoy mine. I am called to accept it, and I am called to see the stark beauty of it. I am called to hunger and thirst and to recognize that in that hunger I can find God.

Epic stories require battle and suffering and sorrow, rarely concluding with a simple "they lived happily ever after". The beauty, the glory, the magnificence is in the love and loss.

Our God is a God of the beatitudes.

Blessed are they who suffer.

I am endlessly comforted in knowing this.