Help us hereto, holy angels, and thou, Mary, Queen of angels!
As I have often told you already, the likeness of our will to the divine will consists partly in doing or avoiding what God wills, when God wills, how God wills, and because God wills us to do or avoid it, and partly in being quite satisfied and content with whatever arrangement God has made with regard to us and to all creatures, in great things or small, in high things or lowly, in agreeable or disagreeable things. My dear brethren, we find a perfect example of this twofold conformity in the holy angels in heaven. With regard to the first, the Prophet David, wishing to give the angels a name descriptive of their office, calls them servants and attendants of God, who have nothing else to do but to fulfil His holy will. For he sings to them: " Bless the Lord, all ye His angels; you that are mighty in strength, and execute His word, hearkening to the voice of His orders. Bless the Lord, all ye His hosts; you ministers of His that do His will."
And how quickly, readily, joyfully, and perfectly they do that holy will! St. John in the Apocalypse says of the cherubim, who appeared to him under the guise of mysterious living things, that they were "full of eyes before and behind;" and they had "each of them six wings; and round about and within they are full of eyes;" namely, that they might always see and attend to every sign of their Creator in order to be ready to obey it at once. They were equipped with wings, and indeed angels are always painted thus, to show the readiness and speed with which they carry out the divine command. St. Thomas of Aquin speaks of two kinds of angels: the one he calls assistentes, or attendants, the other ministrantes, or servants; after the manner of a royal court, in which there are some ministers who never leave the royal presence, and others who have to go here and there to fulfil the king's behests. The former stand before the great God, waiting for His commands with all possible reverence and awe; the others fly to execute the orders given them by God. shown from Thus, as we read in Holy Writ, an angel goes to stand sentinel at the entrance of paradise to guard it, until he should be recalled by the Almighty from his post. " He placed before
