Michael and his angels battled against the dragon.
…you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
This is, in some ways, a post better suited for my other blog, The AX; its a bit longer and more didactic (without being patronizing, I hope). But, here it is. This is what came to me during my morning Holy Hour, so rather than fight it, I'm going to let it stand as is.
I have made it an unfortunate habit of scrolling through Twitter on a daily basis. Like many people, it's a place I go to for news. I try not to interact because I learned early on it's a space that enjoys oneupmanship more than pursuing truth and understanding. There are many different "communities" on the platform - people with similar interests who follow each other. One of these virtual communities is metaphorically called “Catholic Twitter.” In line with the rest of that platform, it is a place where charity goes to die. Rather than bringing people to together in honest conversation, seeking mutual understanding, it too often devolves into Trads trying to own the Modernists and Progressives trying to shame the Radtrads.
To unpack what I just wrote for the uninitiated, anyone who supports the traditional, pre-1962 Latin Mass and is critical of Pope Francis is either labeled a Traditionalist (Trad) or a Radical Traditionalist (Radtrad). Someone who holds more progressive views and supports Pope Francis are label modernists, after the early 20th century heresy. Got that? The people who roughly fit into these categories don't necessarily think of themselves in these terms. They're all the "real Catholics." The others are whatever we say they are, or just stupid, maybe evil, and probably both. Where ever they fall on the stupid/evil xy axis - they are certainly dangerous.
Everyone in the middle (most of whom are blissfully unaware of any of this) who’s just trying to live the faith the best they can and have no strong opinions either way on the liturgy or Pope Francis, other than he is pope and is deserving of our respect and, dare I say, loyalty, are Novus Ordo (NO) Catholics, or as I like to put it: Catholic without qualifiers.
Heaven forbid you show sympathy for the idea of resorting some Latin to the liturgy, or am happy with the post Councilor reform as is, or speak kindly of Pope Francis, or simply question something he said because you have legitimate concerns - off you go into one of the baskets of deplorables reserved for Martin Luther or Fr. Coughlin.
I go through this muck right now, because my reflection on the feast of the Archangels may get me labeled one thing or another.
What the feast and the readings chosen for it point us to is the cosmic nature of our faith. We do not live in a hermetically sealed container. There is a realm we can not see, and a spiritual battle being fought. It involves heavenly and demonic forces interacting with human beings as individuals as well as through their institutions. The fight is over souls, and who we worship: is it the One True God, or is it the Beast?
One side of the Catholic Twitter divide is very comfortable with this “narrative,” the other seems almost to deny its existence. Is this the only narrative Scripture supplies us with? No. The Word of God is diverse that way. We are given both the big picture - salvation history view, as well as guidance for the everyday, with little or no reference to what’s beyond the veil. We are admonished to act with justice and strive after peace here and now, and be aware that demonic forces are afoot trying to undo Christ’s work, so as to keep us from eternal life.
Today is a day to reflect on the big picture. It is a day to remember that our enemy is not made of flesh and blood, but is spiritual. It tries to usurp God so as to become identified with the divine. It seeks to make us worship and adore it, not God. It wants to claim the status of savior. (I could develop this more, but will let it stand for now. Only to say, the goal seems to be, not so much to worship some exterior idol, as to get us obsessing over our own individual identity, driving us emotionally so deeply into ourselves that we come to actually worship ourselves.)
Most of all it tries to divide us. It tries to get us to accuse one another. It tries to convince us that our enemies are the people who live around us, and have shared in the same regenerating bath of Baptism. It makes us obsessed with politics, linking our status as Catholics with our party affiliation. For all the talk about seamless garments, it makes us choose between defending the life of the unborn and that of the migrant. It wails and gnashes teeth at the actions of one administration and ignores the injustices of the next, depending on the letter next to the name. It proclaims one leader as coming in the spirit of Cyrus the Great, while the other is truly "God's Candidate," who St. Francis would have voted for. In the end both preside over the same broken, corrupt system.
We need to step back. We are in a spiritual combat. The archangels and angels have been sent by God to defend us. These remarkable creatures, intelligent and powerful beyond our imagining, humbly serve God by serving us. This is why the devils rebelled: they would not serve, especially not flesh and blood creatures like ourselves.
We are more than just passive spectators. By our worship of the True God, prayers, devotions, corporal works of mercy and faithful citizenship, all in Jesus' Name, we join with the angels in this cosmic struggle. But we must ask ourselves: are we pawns or are we protagonists? If we stay divided among the different Twitter baskets we are worse than pawns: we are useful idiots for the enemy. It is only together, even with our differences, that we become true protagonists in the Lord's service.
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