Make friends with
the angels, who though invisible are always with you. Often invoke them,
constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all
your temporal and spiritual affairs.
— Francis de Sales (1567–1622)
WARY not to
alarm people who are ordinarily open to the spiritual realm — and there is such a phenomenon — it is still
worthy for us to consider the influence and impact of dimensions and agents we
cannot see.
Francis de
Sales, a Roman Catholic bishop of Geneva, a Saint no less, was clearly in touch
with a world beyond the world we see. He was an exemplar of spiritual direction
who received unquestioned respect from both Protestantism and Roman
Catholicism.
As a spiritual
director, de Sales would necessarily plumb the depths of spiritual experience
of those he was helping; using techniques of spiritual enquiry that made people
focus on their experience of the divine.
A lot of such
material is unearthed in how the Word of God mediates within the experience of the
real life of a disciple ardent on spiritual intimacy with their Lord.
A beautiful
byproduct of such ardency to the spiritual life of direction is experience of
the spiritual world, though it is never visible. It is a reality that occurs
palpably by faith. And by faith, what is eternal and never more real — the
unseen spiritual world — is real and, as such, is an affirmation of the growth
in the spiritual life.
Into such a
breach comes the ideal breeding ground for a life preparing itself for
eternity. Such a life is open to the myriads of dimensional possibilities. And
it’s through this lens that the above de Sales quote finds itself prefaced.
***
If we feel
disposed to believing in the angels and the angelic realm — and why not, for
our Christian faith biblically espouses such a spiritual dimension — we have
something of a defence and a counterattack against the darker spiritual forces
also espoused by the Bible.
The deeper we go
into the spiritual life the more we will entreat the spiritual forces on both
sides of the ledger. There is nothing to fear. Indeed, if we push past fear we
render the darker forces powerless and pathetic. When we have realised that the
dark forces are rendered mute, and we assume God provides angelic help, we
really gain confidence in the eternal possibilities inherent to the Christian
life.
Then we find that
quotes like de Sales’ above stand alone in their effect.
© 2015 Steve
Wickham.
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