Lucifer And What We Can Learn From Him
by Rev. Fr. Walter Farrell O.P.

Lucifer, the Bearer of Light who became the Prince of Darkness, has earned his name of Satan, "The Adversary". He is the enemy of God, of man, of all that is good. It is no part of wisdom to underestimate an enemy. It is stupidity to cultivate an ignorance of the enemy to the point of blindness to his existence; for in such blindness it is impossible to face an enemy, let alone hold him at bay or conquer him. This is to invite defeat, to welcome slavery, to yield to a conquest that in this case is radical, irrevocable, eternal.

Satan, like all other Angels, was created in (sanctifying) grace, i.e. from the first moment of life, he was lifted to the supernatural plane. The wide horizons of his angelic mind were opened to the horizons of divinity by the supernatural gift of faith, letting him see through the eyes of God; his will was divinised by a charity and hope that would enable him to love God in a divine fashion and to stretch forth in eager confidence of divine help to goals that are possible only to God. These supernatural gifts, that are necessary to every intelligent creature who would come home to God, were given to the Angels in exact proportion to their natural gifts; in other words, the highest of the Angels was, then, given the greatest perfection of charity, of faith, of hope, the most abundant share in the divine life of grace. Here was the mountain top of perfection, natural and supernatural, from which Lucifer plunged to his eternal doom by an act of his own free will.

 

Something of the terrifying powers of our Enemy is apparent from his natural perfection. We must grasp something of the tragedy that saw the light of such faith extinguished, and utter blackness descend to hide forever the secrets of God; that closed forever the gates of hope and opened the flood-gates of despair; for only then can we begin to suspect the consuming rancour that hurls those diabolic powers against all that is good, and with no surcease.

 

The dazzling quality of angelic perfection would seem to preclude the very thought of sin. Yet the ennobling fact is that Heaven is not only given; it is also earned. Lucifer was created in sanctifying grace to crown his natural perfection; he was, that is, fully equipped to win the prize of Heaven, but he still had to win it. Because he could win, he could also lose. Like our own, his freedom was reverently respected by the action of God; and, like ourselves, if he were to have Heaven he would have to merit it by the goodness of a free act, by his own free choice. Because the gates of Heaven were thrown open to his efforts it became possible for him to go to Hell. In this supreme test, the Devil did not win Heaven but lost it; or rather, he freely and deliberately turned his back on it. He was the first; all others who joined his hordes whether among the Angels or men, were volunteers, haunting the halls of Hell only because they so chose!