That Which the Age Has Forgotten: Angels, Faith, and the Depth of the Real

A man kneeling in prayer, cloaked in shadow, bathed in heavenly light where angelic figures emerge. A baroque, silent, and contemplative scene.

Introduction

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."— Ephesians 6:12

Behind the turbulence of visible things lies another world. Not a distant, hazy elsewhere, but a depth — real, vibrant, breathing with eternity — that only faith can perceive. Scripture is unambiguous: our battle is not fought solely on the surface of things. It is traversed by angels, signs, shadows, and combat.

And yet, even among believers, this truth fades. According to recent surveys, fewer than half of Catholics in France still believe in the existence of angels or demons. Most no longer trust in invisible realities. Many still pray, but as one leaves a message into the void, without expecting a reply. The supernatural has become awkward, suspect, almost medieval.

It is a quiet but dramatic shift: the Creed is still recited, but now thought symbolic. The Gospels are read, but the spirits within are exiled. God is spoken of, but as a principle — not as a Person. And thus, what was meant to illuminate the world is slowly extinguished under the weight of a psychologized Christianity, hollowed out of its spiritual substance.

This text is not a nostalgic rehabilitation of a magical worldview. It is a call to see reality differently. To believe in angels is to believe that the world is inhabited. To believe in demons is to understand that some forces defy explanation by chance or brain chemistry. It is to rediscover a lost key — the key to that invisible depth, without which the visible itself becomes absurd.

Angels are not a species — they are a vocation

One of the most persistent misunderstandings — even among believers — is to think that angels constitute a race, a species, a kind of invisible celestial people. But nothing could be further from Catholic teaching. Angels do not belong to a species; each one is its own species. Each is a unique, immediate creation — a pure act of divine intelligence and will.

Thomas Aquinas — who developed a profound theology of angels in his Summa Theologiae (I, q.50-64) — explains that an angel is not defined by matter but solely by its form. Each angel, he writes, is a substantia separata, an individual intellectual substance. One might even say, without irreverence: each angel is a poem written by God.

The word "angel" does not describe their nature but their function. It comes from the Greek angelos — messenger, one who carries a message. As Pope Gregory the Great once remarked, "Those who announce lesser things are simply called angels; those who announce greater things, archangels." (Homilies on the Gospel, 34). A spiritual being, before being sent, is a pure spirit. It is only through relation to the world that it becomes an "angel".

The hierarchy of the nine celestial choirs — Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels — is rooted in the tradition received from Dionysius the Areopagite in the sixth century and developed further by Aquinas. But beyond this classification is a movement of love and service: those closest to God burn with pure love (Seraphim), while those closest to man watch and announce (Angels).

To reject this vision — whether out of fear of excessive mysticism or from modernist readings of Scripture — is to deprive oneself of an essential lens on reality. And more than that: it is to deprive oneself of prayer.For if one denies the existence of evil spiritual powers, why pray to be delivered from evil?

Shall we focus on the light — but whose light?

Many today — especially skeptics and, more worryingly, amateur esotericists — claim that religion invented the devil. That speaking of Satan gives him power. That a higher wisdom would be to remain silent, avoid feeding fear, and simply "focus on the light."

But what light, exactly? The light of God — or the light of self? The light of the Word made flesh — or that of one’s own inner "awakening," often enthroned as a new, narcissistic dogma devoid of transcendence? The light we are now urged to contemplate — could it not, sometimes, be that of the fallen angel himself?

It is worth remembering: the word lucid shares its root with Lucifer — the bearer of light (lucem ferre). So clarity, in itself, is not always a virtue. We must ask: what light guides us? Not all light is divine. There exists a light that blinds. A light that exposes but does not heal. That reveals but does not redeem. Scripture teaches us to fear such brilliance — light that is without mercy.

This is precisely what post-modern spirituality offers: a cult of lucidity without repentance, of light without a cross, of spiritual awakening without religious humility. How often have I heard people praise "spirituality without religion," "awakening without doctrine," "universal love without commandments"... But if the invisible world is real, then it too is dogmatic. It is not a landscape for subjective exploration — but a revealed order, marked by laws, hierarchies, and war.

What we need today is not more lucidity — but more hope.

Lucidity without faith leaves us bare before the absurd. It sees, but it does not save. It analyzes, but it does not love. It is often the pride of those who believe they understand, while the Gospel calls us, instead, to believe.

Hope does not come from us. It is a higher light, gentler and more persistent. It is not our light we follow — but God’s. A light that flows from His gaze — a gaze of mercy, that never tires of believing in us, even when we have stopped believing in anything. Hope does not deny the battle. It walks through it. It does not erase the darkness — it places a lamp inside it.

It does not say, "Everything will be fine."It says: "You are not alone."And that — that is true light.

And who benefits from this confusion? Who gains when evil remains unnamed? Every soul makes a wager — nearly Pascalian — by choosing whether or not to believe in demons. But what if the skeptics are wrong? If the invisible world is not an invention? Then they have claimed to be wiser than Scripture, more discerning than Saint Paul, more enlightened than the Fathers, more advanced than the Church — and even more insightful than Christ himself.

But Christ never treated demons as symbols. He cast them out (Mark 1:39), spoke to them (Mark 5:9), described their strategies (Matthew 12:43), and saw their fall:

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18)

He linked them to human suffering (Luke 13:16), named their master "the father of lies" (John 8:44). Never did he say, “This is a metaphor.” Never did he tell the disciples, “Don’t worry, this is just mental illness.” He healed. He taught. But he never disincarnated evil.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: At the Center — or Everywhere?

Religious tradition, sacred art, and even our childhood catechisms have often portrayed the two trees — the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — standing side by side at the center of the Garden of Eden. The image is powerful, nearly instinctive. But what does the biblical text actually say?

Here is Genesis 2:9, in the original Hebrew:

“The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing to the sight and good for food, and the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

And in the Septuagint — the Greek translation predating Christianity:

“And God caused to spring from the earth every tree beautiful to behold and good for food, and the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Only the Tree of Life is placed "in the midst" of the garden — both in Hebrew and Greek. The Tree of Knowledge, though certainly present, is not given a location. It is simply mentioned. This silence, so deliberate, must be meaningful.

Ancient Jewish traditions noticed this detail. Several early midrashim speak of Eden not as a geographical site, but as a spiritual condition — a place opened by purity of heart. The Bereshit Rabbah, a third-century rabbinic commentary, sees the garden as an inner realm of communion, not a plot of land. From this perspective, the Tree of Knowledge is not a cartographic landmark — but a permanent moral possibility.

The early Christian thinker Origen, deeply steeped in Jewish exegesis, wrote:

“Do not think that paradise was planted somewhere on earth. Paradise is within you, if you are pleasing to God.”(Homily on Genesis)

The Tree of Knowledge, then, is not absent because it is far — but because it is near. Not fixed in space, but embedded in the conscience. It appears wherever man assumes he knows better than God. It stands at the threshold of self-deified autonomy — of knowledge severed from revelation.

And this is why the Tree of Knowledge is, today more than ever, the icon of modern temptation. The moment man declares, “I will decide for myself what is good and what is evil, without reference to God,” he eats of it. Every time we say, “What God forbids is surely a patriarchal projection,” the serpent still whispers:

“Did God really say...?” (Genesis 3:1)

And if, as Christ says, “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), then Eden too is within. The center of the garden is no longer a point on a map — it is the center of the soul. And the real question is not between two trees, but between two ways of knowing: one humble and received, the other grasping and alone.

The Genesis account is not a journalistic report on human origins. It is what theologians call a typological narrative — or more deeply, an arche-story. It does not recount the past for curiosity’s sake: it unveils the hidden foundation of the present. It does not speak of a fruit, but of a claim. Not of a lost location, but of a battle still raging within each of us.

The Invisible World: When Reason Disarms Prayer

Our age believes it has found peace by exorcising demons through silence. By refusing to believe in them, by relegating them to myth, it imagines itself free. Darkness has become a literary trope, the devil a baroque echo, the spiritual forces of evil a liturgical embarrassment.

But this peace is an illusion. You don’t disarm evil by ceasing to believe in it. You only make it freer.

Rationalized religion — where everything is reduced to psychology, sociology, or cultural memory — wears a comforting mask. It sounds mature, modern, “compatible with today.” But it crumbles in crisis. A faith without the invisible can no longer pray. For how can one ask to be delivered from evil if one no longer believes it exists?

Spiritual warfare is not an optional metaphor — it is a dogma of faith. Jesus did not say, “Pray for emotional balance.” He said:

“Deliver us from the Evil One.” (ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ, Matthew 6:13)

The Church has always preserved this literal translation — not simply “evil,” but “the Evil One.” That choice is not accidental.

To reject the invisible world is to strip prayer of its armor. It is to stand barefoot in a battlefield because one believes the enemy is fictional. And when anguish comes, when temptation surges, when inexplicable oppression or darkness descends — what remains? Theories? Breathing exercises? A few mantras from wellness blogs?

But Christian prayer is a weapon — not against men, but against powers. It is a cry to heaven, a desperate plea to the One who sees beyond our understanding. It requires a naked faith, a surrender to mystery, a trust in what is unseen but sensed deep within the bones: this world is not what it seems.

It is here that modern rationalism betrays its dead end. It tried to “save” faith by making it respectable. But a faith made too respectable ceases to be faith. It becomes ethics. Culture. Folklore. And a faith that no longer believes in the invisible can no longer intercede. It falls silent before the real tragedies.

And yet God, mysteriously, does nothing without us. Not because He is weak, but because He chooses love. He desires partners, not puppets. Scripture shows this from the beginning:He entrusts the garden to Adam (Genesis 2:15),waits for Abraham to intercede for Sodom (Genesis 18:23–32),permits Moses to plead for Israel (Exodus 32:11–14),and waits for Mary’s “yes.”

When Christ heals, He never says, “I have decided to save you.”He says:

“Go; your faith has saved you.” (Mark 10:52; Luke 17:19; Luke 8:48; Matthew 9:22)

The miracle is always offered — but faith is the door.

This is not mere sentiment. It is a spiritual law. God can do all things, but He refuses to force the heart. Prayer, faith, and intercession are not optional. They are the key.

To believe is to let God act. Not to believe is to disarm Him — not by His will, but by His reverence for our freedom.

This is why a faith that no longer believes in the invisible is no longer alive. It becomes memory. It retreats into morality. It recites rites without fire. It can no longer pray that evil be pushed back, because it no longer believes evil advances.

But if one believes — even faintly, even through tears — then heaven opens.God asks only one thing: our yes.Our faith.Our prayer.

“If you believe, you will see the glory of God.”(John 11:40)

Discernment: The Light Is Stronger

It is not enough to believe in the invisible world. One must also learn to see it rightly. Christian angelology has never been about morbid fascination or demon-chasing. It has nothing to do with rumors, collective hysteria, or obsessive spiritual fixations. To believe in evil is not to see it everywhere. It is simply to recognize that it acts — and that it has already been overcome.

The opposite danger is just as real: to see too much. Behind every malaise, a demon. Behind every opposition, an attack. Behind every confusion, a sign. This kind of distorted reading breeds fear, isolation, and sometimes even madness. But Christ did not call us to fear. He called us to vigilance — and to peace. The true battle is not one of obsession, but of charity. Light does not shout. It shines.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, master of discernment, taught this:

“When it is God who acts, He leaves in the soul peace, gentleness, and clarity. When it is the enemy, he leaves disturbance, agitation, and confusion.”(Spiritual Exercises, Rules for Discernment, II.1)

It is not about being afraid of the devil. It is about living in the presence of God. Yes, the world is filled with voices — but only one is the voice of the Shepherd. And that voice, no darkness can silence.

This is where everything comes together. Christian angelology is not a side note of faith. It is its silent resonance. It tells us we are not alone — never have been. That prayer is not a monologue but a call sent out into a world that listens, watches, fights, responds. To believe in spiritual warfare is not to indulge in magical thinking — it is to see reality in its full depth.

To reject this vision is to walk blind. But to surrender to it without prudence is to risk religious madness. The path, always, is narrow. It winds between suspicion and superstition. Its name is faith.

And when the world seems too dark, let us remember:the angels still see.They sing.They serve.They fight.And they walk beside us through the shadow, toward the light.

“You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day… for He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”— Psalm 91:5,11