This state of division into many nations, each entrusted by divine providence to the guardianship of Angels, is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity 10 united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel. 11 But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism. 12

Peter could recognize the transcendent character of the Messiah's divine Sonship because Jesus had clearly allowed it to be so understood. To his accusers' question before the Sanhedrin, "Are you the Son of God, then?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am." 50 Well before this, Jesus referred to himself as "the Son" who knows the Father, as distinct from the "servants" God had earlier sent to his people; he is superior even to the Angels. 51 He distinguished his sonship from that of his disciples by never saying "our Father", except to command them: "You, then, pray like this: 'Our Father'", and he emphasized this distinction, saying "my Father and your Father". 52

The Gospels speak of a time of solitude for Jesus in the desert immediately after his baptism by John. Driven by the Spirit into the desert, Jesus remains there for forty days without eating; he lives among wild beasts, and Angels minister to him. 241 At the end of this time Satan tempts him three times, seeking to compromise his filial attitude toward God. Jesus rebuffs these attacks, which recapitulate the temptations of Adam in Paradise and of Israel in the desert, and the devil leaves him "until an opportune time". 242

How will Jerusalem welcome her Messiah? Although Jesus had always refused popular attempts to make him king, he chooses the time and prepares the details for his messianic entry into the city of "his father David". 308 Acclaimed as Son of David, as the one who brings salvation (Hosanna means "Save!" or "Give salvation!"), the "King of Glory" enters his City "riding on an ass". 309 Jesus conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor by violence, but by the humility that bears Witness to the truth. 310 and so the subjects of his kingdom on that day are children and God's poor, who acclaim him as had the Angels when they announced him to the shepherds. 311 Their acclamation, "Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord", 312 is taken up by the Church in the Sanctus of the Eucharistic liturgy that introduces the memorial of the Lord's Passover.

John the Baptist is "more than a prophet." 94 In him, the Holy Spirit concludes his speaking through the prophets. John completes the cycle of prophets begun by Elijah. 95 He proclaims the imminence of the consolation of Israel; he is the "voice" of the Consoler who is coming. 96 As the Spirit of truth will also do, John "came to bear Witness to the light." 97 In John's sight, the Spirit thus brings to completion the careful search of the prophets and fulfills the longing of the Angels. 98 "He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.... Behold, the Lamb of God." 99

Christians of the first centuries said, "The world was created for the sake of the Church." 153 God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the "convocation" of men in Christ, and this "convocation" is the Church. the Church is the goal of all things, 154 and God permitted such painful upheavals as the Angels' fall and man's sin only as occasions and means for displaying all the power of his arm and the whole measure of the love he wanted to give the world:

The three states of the Church. "When the Lord comes in Glory, and all his Angels with him, death will be no more and all things will be subject to him. But at the present time some of his disciples are pilgrims on earth. Others have died and are being purified, while still others are in glory, contemplating 'in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is"': 490

This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity - this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the Angels and all the blessed - is called "heaven." Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.

Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. 612 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his Angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire," 613 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!" 614

The resurrection of all the dead, "of both the just and the unjust," 621 will precede the Last Judgment. This will be "the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man's] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment." 622 Then Christ will come "in his Glory, and all the Angels with him .... Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.... and they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." 623

All the signs in the liturgical celebrations are related to Christ: as are sacred images of the holy Mother of God and of the Saints as well. They truly signify Christ, who is glorified in them. They make manifest the "cloud of Witnesses" 29 who continue to participate in the salvation of the world and to whom we are united, above all in sacramental celebrations. Through their icons, it is man "in the image of God," finally transfigured "into his likeness," 30 who is revealed to our faith. So too are the Angels, who also are recapitulated in Christ:

Holy Communion, because by this sacrament we unite ourselves to Christ, who makes us sharers in his Body and Blood to form a single body. 149 We also call it: the holy things (ta hagia; sancta) 150 - the first meaning of the phrase "communion of Saints" in the Apostles' Creed - the bread of Angels, bread from heaven, medicine of immortality, 151 viaticum....

Justification is the most excellent work of God's love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that "the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the Creation of Heaven and Earth," because "heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect . . . will not pass away." 43 He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the Angels in justice, in that it bears Witness to a greater mercy.

Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the Angels, and all the Saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new "economy" of images.

Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God - the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ, who "reflects the Glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature," in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." 296 This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most holy Virgin Mother of God, the Angels, and Saints. Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.

In the Old Testament, "Son of God" is a title given to the Angels, the Chosen People, the children of Israel, and their kings. 44 It signifies an adoptive sonship that establishes a relationship of particular intimacy between God and his creature. When the promised Messiah-King is called "son of God", it does not necessarily imply that he was more than human, according to the literal meaning of these texts. Those who called Jesus "son of God", as the Messiah of Israel, perhaps meant nothing more than this. 45

Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. 176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

The Scriptural expression "Heaven and Earth" means all that exists, Creation in its entirety. It also indicates the bond, deep within creation, that both unites heaven and earth and distinguishes the one from the other: "the earth" is the world of men, while "heaven" or "the heavens" can designate both the firmament and God's own "place" - "our Father in heaven" and consequently the "heaven" too which is eschatological Glory. Finally, "heaven" refers to the Saints and the "place" of the spiritual creatures, the Angels, who surround God. 186

The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls "Angels" is a truth of faith. the Witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition.

St. Augustine says: "'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you seek the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit', from what they do, 'angel.'" 188 With their whole beings the Angels are servants and messengers of God. Because they "always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven" they are the "mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word". 189

As purely spiritual creatures Angels have intelligence and will: they are perSonal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendour of their Glory bears Witness. 190

Christ is the centre of the angelic world. They are his Angels: "When the Son of man comes in his Glory, and all the angels with him. . " 191 They belong to him because they were created through and for him: "for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - all things were created through him and for him." 192 They belong to him still more because he has made them messengers of his saving plan: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?" 193

Angels have been present since Creation and throughout the history of salvation, announcing this salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham's hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets, just to cite a few examples. 194 Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor and that of Jesus himself. 195

From the Incarnation to the Ascension, the life of the Word incarnate is surrounded by the adoration and service of Angels. When God "brings the firstborn into the world, he says: 'Let all God's angels worship him.'" 196 Their Song of praise at the birth of Christ has not ceased resounding in the Church's praise: "Glory to God in the highest!" 197 They protect Jesus in his infancy, serve him in the desert, strengthen him in his agony in the garden, when he could have been saved by them from the hands of his enemies as Israel had been. 198 Again, it is the angels who "evangelize" by proclaiming the Good News of Christ's Incarnation and Resurrection. 199 They will be present at Christ's return, which they will announce, to serve at his judgement. 200

In the meantime, the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of Angels. 201

In her liturgy, the Church joins with the Angels to adore the thrice-holy God. She invokes their assistance (in the Roman Canon's Supplices te rogamus. . .["Almighty God, we pray that your angel..."]; in the funeral liturgy's In Paradisum deducant te angeli. . .["May the angels lead you into Paradise. . ."]). Moreover, in the "Cherubic Hymn" of the Byzantine Liturgy, she celebrates the memory of certain angels more particularly (St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, and the guardian angels).

From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. 202 "Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life." 203 Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of Angels and men united in God.

Scripture speaks of a sin of these Angels. 269 This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God." 270 The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies". 271

It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the Angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death." 272

Man is in search of God. In the act of Creation, God calls every being from nothingness into existence. "Crowned with Glory and honor," man is, after the Angels, capable of acknowledging "how majestic is the name of the Lord in all the earth." 1 Even after losing through his sin his likeness to God, man remains an image of his Creator, and retains the desire for the one who calls him into existence. All religions bear Witness to men's essential search for God. 2