The men of our times are absorbed in the preoccupations of life, carried away by the current of present things, not seeing anything beyond pleasures, riches, honours, earthly aspirations. Their life is assuredly a life without light; it is the plaything of false flickers, of false mirages, of deceiving illusions.
Our scientists have made marvelous discoveries, but not in the low places or the high have they found God. Nowhere have they discerned His presence or His action. They lack the ray that descends from above and makes creation appear to them in its true glory: it becomes the mirror of things Divine, a book full of God.
Men, hungry for pleasure, bend their knees before creatures, asking them for happiness. But there they meet devouring anxieties and profound bitterness. They lack the light of Christ which allows them to comprehend the human heart, this heart which is capable of infinite aspirations and which only God can satisfy.
If a heart thirsts for happiness, the spirit thirsts for light. The Truth is his need, his life. Without it, he suffers and languishes, as all of nature suffers and languishes when the sun disappears below the horizon. But how many men do not discern the Truth, and how many ask where it is? Like a blindman, they ask: “What is the sun and what benefit does it carry to the world” ! They lack the light of the Truth which delivers and saves, which dispels all clouds and pierces all darkness.
To those who can no longer distinguish the Truth, we add those who do not know anymore what is good and what is evil. Are we not at a time where all Truth is diminished? The world makes its own gospel and moral code, where every vice finds a pretext or an excuse. The world lacks the Divine light which shows the good and helps one love it, it shows the bad and makes one hate it.
In the midst of this darkness, which grows stronger every day, wrapping society and carrying gloom into souls, Saint Michael shines before Christian eyes, the pure light of the Faith: he is the angel of light, the angel of Faith. Saint John speaks of him when he says, “I have seen the angel whose face shone like the sun.” God clothed him with the light of which the fallen angel had, until then, been the brilliant focus; and powerfully reflecting the Divine Light, he is charged with projecting it by a marvellous shining throughout the entirety of creation.
The rebellious angel pursues his goal relentlessly; to throw spirits into doubt, into incredulity; he is the angel of deceit, the angel of darkness. His eternal conqueror foils his black plots by spreading the light everywhere: he illuminates souls, dispels their uncertainty, and makes them blossom in supernatural clarity. In heaven, at the cry of saint Michael, the light emerges dazzling, and the angels see God in the midst of His unalterable glory; they believe and they adore.
Practice: Let us guard our Faith and let us avoid anything that could obscure the Divine sun in our souls.
