I am a cradle Catholic, a baby boomer and a member of that group of students who could never figure out why some of our teachers did not wear religious habits. “What do they mean by a Lay teacher?” we asked when we first heard that term.
The early 1960's was a time before the current great social upheaval began. On TV the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black. Television itself began and ended each broadcast day with the National Anthem, and prayer was found in both public and parochial schools. It was a great time to be a kid.
It was also a great time to be a Catholic student as the nuns made sure we fully understood what was happening all around us, the “great battle” for our souls. We were the Church Militant embroiled in a battle that had raged since the beginning of time.
Each day was another opportunity to be a soldier for Christ as we went about our daily tasks. The nuns told us we were not alone, each of us had our guardian angel right next to us – a spiritual being who never left our side. That teaching is still 100 percent Catholic orthodoxy, although you rarely hear it talked about today outside of nursery school.
The image of a guardian angel has remained with me, though, and it colors everything I do. As I deal with duties that set my nerves on edge I pray to my guardian angel. As I walk up to the ambo to sing the responsorial psalm as a cantor at my parish, I asked my angel for his help.
As I watch the problems of the world unfold I see not only two warring human armies, I see the angelic and the demonic forces locked in mortal combat. God's enemy, Satan, who is every bit our enemy as well, keeps count of the souls he brings to damnation as his only way to truly hurt the Father.
God created the universe, set it in motion – and continues to act as the first principle of existence. Without God, there is nothing. Nonetheless, he placed His angels to be creation’s caretaker. As I look up to the night sky and see the moon, stars and points of light that are actually galaxies, my mind is expanded by the shear enormity of God's work. And each physical body has an angel to watch over it!
When nature turns violent with hurricanes and tornados their power is awesome. But that power is inconsequential when compared to the power of the spiritual world that all of us will one day experience, either as Children of the Light or Children of the Dark. We will either be content joy filled amazed observers or hopeless broken shards blown about by mighty blasts.
In the context of that spiritual realm, as it intersects with our own physical world, perhaps no other thought is more mind-blowing than the Eucharist. God the Father created everything through Jesus His Son. I take within my hands and consume within my body Him through whom the giant stars, galaxies, black holes, all corporeal and non-corporeal life was brought into existence. Infinite power I can hold and take within me only because He made it possible.
The Catholic imagination is fed by the Truth of Catholic teaching. This Truth is stranger than fiction. It is also more awe inspiring and humbling.
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