Faber speaks in the following terms of the rational creatures of God, including men and angels: “God became a King by becoming a Creator. Thus He gained an empire over which His insatiable love might rule.” Nature is very beautiful, whether we think of angelic or human nature. Created nature is a shadow of the uncreated nature, so real and so bright that we cannot think of it without exceeding reverence. Yet God created neither men nor angels in a state of nature. This is, to my mind, the most wonderful and most suggestive thing which we know about God. He would have no reasonable nature, even from the very first, which should not be partaker of His divine nature. This is the very meaning of the state of grace. He would not have it to breathe for one instant in a merely natural way. The very act of creation was full of fondness, of paternal jealousy. O that majesty of God, which seems clothed with such wonderful tranquillity in the eternity before the creation! Prayer. O angel of God, etc., etc. Ninth day. Not only do the angels praise almighty God, pray to Him, and converse with Him, but they do it much more effectually than we do because of their greater purity, and because they know God better than we do. Hence the question might be asked, what do the angels know of God, and of religion as it is among us? The answer is that they know what we know, and much more; still there are some things too great because too infinite, even for the intelligence of angels. Can the angels understand God? No, indeed. God is infinite, and no finite mind can comprehend Him. They know that God is one, because even we, in our inferior intelligence, know that there can be but one God; they know too, that there are three divine persons, but it will ever remain a mystery to them as well as to us, because it is a truth of such infinite dimensions; but they understand it much more distinctly than we do. It is probable that the angels knew the mystery of the incarnation by divine revelation, and they believed in it. St. Thomas and other theologians are of opinion that the bad angels fell because they would not submit to the belief in the hypostatic union. It was therefore fitting, for the glory and honor of the Son of God, Who was to be made flesh, that the angels should know this mystery. Prayer. O angel of God, etc., etc. Tenth Day.