Father Faber speaks thus of their knowledge of the precious blood during their term of probation: “The angels wonder more than man at the goodness of God in sending us His divine Son to die for us, because they understand it better. From the very first He invited the angels to adore it. He made their adoration a double exercise of humility—of humility towards Himself, and of humility towards us, [pg 413] their fellow-creatures. It was the test to which He put their loyalty. He showed them His beloved Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, in His sacred humanity, united to a nature lower than theirs, and in that lower nature crowned their King and Head, to be worshipped by them with absolute and unconditional adoration. The Son of a human Mother was to be their head, and that daughter of Eve to be herself their Queen. He showed them in that blood the source of all their graces.” The precious blood was as the dew of the whole kingdom of the angels. Well, then, may the angels claim to sing the song of the Lamb: to Whose outpoured human life they also owed so much.
Prayer.
O angel of God, etc., etc.
Eleventh Day.
The angels merited the crown of a happy eternity in union with God: “For he also, that striveth for the mastery, is not crowned except he striveth lawfully.”—Tim. ii. 5. Such is the law of God, not only for men but for angels also. Pope Gelasius says, “That the angels were so constituted as to merit an increase of eternal glory, is sufficiently indicated by the fact that they stood in need of nothing more, that none of them could have committed evil.” And St. Prosper says of their trial, “It was the action of the will of the holy angels, that while their companions with their own free will rebelled, they themselves remained faithful in the dignity wherein God had placed them; and hence it [pg 414] came to pass by a divine and most just judgment, that what was only up to that a holy desire of remaining with God, became thereafter a voluntary and a most blessed necessity of remaining with Him forever.” We too should strive continually to merit our crown in heaven; we are placed on trial here on this earth, a place of pilgrimage, and we should remain faithful to the conditions of that trial until our journey is over.
Prayer.
O angel of God, etc., etc.