Little is known to man of how the angelic world lives at present and how it will live when time ends. However, from all that we have said previously, we can already see that the life of the bodiless spirits is quite varied and that their activity is great. If the Mighty Lord saw fit to create an entire hierarchy of angels, entrusting each rank with a certain kind of activity, this in itself shows how busy these ministering spirits are. The guardian angels alone have a great deal of work to do with their prot?g?s – the frivolous and sinful humans. We have many testimonies in the writings of the Holy Fathers of how guardian angels often bitterly weep when they look at the sinful behavior of those whom they have been sent to watch.
However, the celestial world is primarily a world of light and joy, and there is undoubtedly much more joy than sadness in the life of the angels. And their supreme joy consists in contemplating and glorifying the brightly-shining Triune Divinity, in constant attendance upon God.
If on earth the Divine liturgy is a previous gift from God to sinful humanity, a gift through which it is sanctified and becomes part of Divinity, then one can piously believe that neither did the Lord deprive the bodiless powers of this great gift. We can presume that in the high heavens the angelic host also serves a spiritual Divine liturgy, in which the Lamb of God is pre-eternally sacrificed out of love for His creation.
At this supreme heavenly Eucharist the angels primarily give glory and thanks to the Creator. But the innumerable choirs of heavenly forces also pour forth their prayers. For whom? Obviously not for themselves, since they are living in the fullness of all the bounties that are accessible to them, but for their beloved mankind, which is adulterous and sinful, mired in worldly vanity, and so needful of celestial aid.
The constant participation of the angels in our earthly services, especially the liturgy, serves as a pledge of this.
“Now the powers of heaven invisibly do serve with us,” clairvoyantly confirms the Church at the mysterious liturgy of Presanctified Gifts, while in the daily liturgy of St. John Chrysostome the serving priest, as though mentally seeing the angels, proclaims that they sing, exclaim, shout, and say: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts…”
The Church boldly confirms that “The angels in heaven, O Christ our Saviour, sing Thy Resurrection…” There is a multitude of such testimonies, and they are well-known to all Christian believers.
It only remains to speak of the activity of the heavenly forces on earth. It is the guardian angels who are primarily engaged in such activity.
Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago
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