The power of the angels is immense. The Scriptures tell us that they destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, by raining fire and brimstone upon them. They destroyed the army of Sennacherib, when every soldier felt the keen edge of the angel's sword; they strangled the first-born of the Egyptian people in one night. The devil, by permission from God, raised storms that tore down the houses in which Job's sons and daughters were feasting, burying all in the ruins. He afflicted Job with a most filthy disease, and robbed him of all his possessions to try to make him revolt against God. When Our Lord freed those who were possessed by the devil, the evil spirit asked to be permitted to enter a herd of swine, and when it had received the permission the swine rushed headlong down the hill into the sea and were destroyed. If then, the power of these spirits is so great for evil, the angels are more powerful for good. We will be friends with our good angels whom God has sent to perform favors for us—favors both temporal and spiritual; we will hate the devil, and with the help of God's grace resist his power.
Prayer.
O angel of God, etc., etc.
Seventh Day.
The angelic world is most beautiful. St. Augustine says in his “City of God,” “The angelic world in its natural dignity surpasses all other things the Lord has made. Consider this intelligence by which they know so many things so perfectly, the great power by which they can do good to their fellow-creatures, the brightness of those wonderful spirits shining like the glorious luminaries of our universe, the wonderful gifts which almighty God furnished them, and we have a picture of such harmonious glory that all the beauty of the world, all the magnificent actions of the human kind, dwindle into insignificance before this great creation of angelic spirits.” In Ezechiel we read of the admirable beauty of the devil that had fallen: “Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God: every precious stone was thy covering ... gold the work of thy beauty: ... Thou wast a cherub stretching out thy wings and covering, and I set thee in the holy mountain of God, thou hast walked in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation, until iniquity was found in thee.”—Ezech. 12-15. And Isaias the prophet exclaimed with regret at the fall of Lucifer, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst arise as the morning.”
Prayer.
O angel of God, etc., etc.