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Hi, Father,

my name is Andrea. I converted in 2013 and since the spring of 2019 I have been part of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit. Of course, I am immensely grateful to Our Lord for salvation and for everything He allows me to do in the shadow of His Holy Cross.

Some time ago, I reflected about whatever I have learned in just nine years of Christian life and my thoughts went first to the Saints, then to the Apostles, then to the Patriarchs and finally to the angels and to St. Michael the Archangel; so, my question: is there any theological or biblical study that tells or even just speculates how old St. Michael the Archangel could be? I am eager about that because, by comparing what I have learned in about nine years, I would get at least a vague idea of how much experience and knowledge could have such an important and beautiful figure, and probably one of the oldest ones in creation.

I get the occasion to thank you for the beautiful site which I do consider an inspired reading.

Thank you.

Andrea

The Priest’s answer

Dear Andrea,

  1. First, I congratulate you for the Lord calling you to “live”.

Without faith, one cannot deeply live but, using the words by Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati, one just gets by.

Coming to the question you asked me: we can count time because we are in a world that is constantly moving.

In fact, time is the measure of what passes (of a movement) according to a before and after.

2. However, angels were not created in a passing world, in a moving world.

As soon as they were created, they immediately saw everything. They entered eternity.

At their creation, many adored and loved God, their Lord, others rebelled at that same moment.

3. Using theological language, angels are intuitive minds, they understand everything at once, and do not need to grow in knowledge.

Instead, human beings are rational and therefore we grow in knowledge of the truth through reasoning.

4. So, it is useless to ask how old angels are, because they were created out of the time, which is proper for this moving world only.

5. Angels had a beginning.

This is why we say they were created.

But, at once, they had everything at their actual beginning.

6. Unlike God, who is eternal and therefore has no beginning, angels had a beginning.

For this reason, an intermediate category between the eternal and time is applied to angels.

Theologians call evo this new period of existence.

Sure, they are in eternity. But not like God is, because He is the Eternal.

7. Finally, it is true that angels cannot grow in the knowledge and love of God because all this is already complete for them.

However, they grow in the services they offer to men according to the will of God.

In this way, they can grow until the end of the world.

Theologians say that they do not grow in essential beatitude, which consists in the knowledge and love of God, but grow in accidental beatitude, in the sense that they are always mediators of new graces toward men.

I wish you all the best and I bless you.

Father Angelo