The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1954-11-19
Just Among Ourselves
Passing Comment Considered or Ineonsidsrats

cITTenTV
of the madhouse An angel, female, laid aside her
wings TO engage in flirtatious hankypank with
personabe young lug and finally to marry him. The
angel il seems bored with her celestial duties,
and preferred marital bliss on earth complete with
mink coat and two-tone convertible.
Now the constant effort of dramatiss 10 find
new situations for the invariabe plot of lovers and
their tribulations is understandable But the thing
ought to be done within the bounds of decency,
taste and seemliness. And the dramatst ought to
have some faint notion of what he is writing about
Perhaps we Catholics, who have knowledge of
angels and Of our privilege to honor God IN them,
do not speak clearly enough and often enough about
these marvellous creatures. Certainly the non-Cabo-
lie world is vague enough about them Or perhaps
uaque is not the word; idiotiedty orong is phrase
the mark.
First of all, angels have no bodies Therefore
angels have neither sex nor wings. "A female
angel lays aside her wings" is short sentence; yet
it contains three prodigious errors. 1t says that
angels are bodily beings, with SEX and wings. Of
course, angels are nothing of the sort
A book of uuzzes asks this question 'Is an angel
biological possibility" The answer given is, quite
properly no. since biology is the laboratorian science
of organisms, that is living bodies, and biological
possibility" would be a possible organism The
question really means "Can spirit be body?"
And manifestly the answer is no.
But the quiz book knows nothing Of spirits II
assumes an angel means organism. Its answer to
the question about tie possibility of angels is
dandy. The book says that an angel is a biological
mpossbility because it would have to possess
breastbone protruding four feet to give balance
and purchase" to its wings. What thing IS
scencel
The utter absurdty of the quiz books answer
does not prevent ones wondering how the scientist
arrived at his conclusion about the precise length
of the angelic PROV 1t seems that to know this
fact one would have to know the size of the angel
and its weight Maybe as Mark Twain would say,
it would be a good thing to know the angels ma
tionaIity too.
The fact is that an angel is pure spirit And
spirit is not kind of shadowy body A spirit is
not body at all 1t has neither weight nor dimen-
sion II occupies space An angel is said to be in
place when il exercises its powers there. But it
is not thing with quantity.
The spirit that is called the human soul is def
initey in the human body and il constitutes the
oody as an existing body of the human kind. Man
is a wondrouS compound of matter and spirit, the
only thing of his kind in the universe. But the
soul is not in the body as hand is in glove II is
not merely inside the body as the internal organs
are inside the body. II is in the body in the sense
that il is compounded with matter TO constitute the
human substance. 1t is in the body somewhat as
hydrogen is in water.
Yet even Webster seems to suggest in his defn-
ition of soul that it is kind of inner fogman with
shadowy arms and legs inside the fleshy members
OF a human body. Nothing could be more mislead-
ing; nothing could be further from the truth.
We live in bodily world, and we get all our
knowledge from bodily beginnings that is, from
the findings of the outer senses. We cannot come
face TO face, to speak, with spiritual substance.
But we can understand what spiritual substance
means. For we have mind or intellect by which
we rise from sense.findings TO the knowledge of
things non-materal. We cannot grasp by our senses
what is meant by unity. goodness, truth, loyalty,
patriotism friendship; yet we do know what these
things are. And we rise from our knowledge
of bodily being 10 knowledge Of nonbodiy being.
from organic substance to non-organc living sub
stance, that is, from organism to spirit
The TV show. and the quiz book and maybe even
Webster, seem to assume that we cannot reach an
understanding of what spiritual substance means.
But we can. And it is an insult to human nteIli-
gence to that cannot II is affront TO hui
man sanity to present the figure of an angel spiritual
substance, as body with wings The TV idiocy
gave new twist TO the nonsense in making the
wings detachable
The rV play also portrayed the sbsurdity of an
angel bored with IFS heavenly assignments An angel
looks upon God in heaven II is constituted in full
perfection and fulfillment of IFS intellectual being;
that is II possesses perfect latitude happiness.
This complete happiness is ehangeess, unborng,
not subject TO WEAKNESS or routine. To this same
happiness man aspres by the whole drive of his
nature. but he requires (aS indeed does an angeD
supernatural aid to achieve it. and he cannot
achieve it this side of heaven. And heaven is not
place for boredom or dissatisfaction
The sad mistake of these material representa-
tions of things nonmateria and of interpreting
perfect fulflllment in terms of material experience
is inevitable in authors and playwrights who will
not take the trouble 10 learn what they writing
about And so the art Of novelist and dramsst is
turned n ? powerful instrument for the dissemin-
alton of calamious error
The materiastic world supposes that anybody
can Joke about angels-even when nobody actually
the Joke II is blandly assumed that in a world
where the main business of life consists in having
the right car and being sure with Sehuysterhonse,
nobody need be sure or right in knowing what
angels are or what they are for, or Why ought
to know them, and love them, and seek their
aid in getting IN to heaven. And this bland as
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