“And it was night.” As Judas took the bread from Jesus, the Gospel of John says, "He went out. And it was night.” It strikes me just how helpful that line can be for us in fight against temptation and sin. It seems to me that even though we are awake during the day, striving quite imperfectly to be virtuous while moving about among our fellow man, our more frightening betrayals of the Lord most often occur in the hour referred to as “night.”

Saint Theresa of Avila “went inside,” but very differently than do the self-obsessed. She went in to gain possession of her heart in order to give her heart to God. Here’s a way to think about Saint Theresa. Recall the encounter of Saint Peter with Our Lord on the shores of Galilee after Jesus had been raised from the dead. Peter had denied him just a few days earlier, but still he jumps into the water, swims to Jesus, and says to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

We begin life by hunting success, first by passing exams, then by seeking acceptance into schools and the workforce. After that life becomes about wellness and the accumulation of wealth. But without wisdom, how are we to know what to do with success or health or wealth? When I was a little boy I had very little understanding of how the world worked, but my mother used to say that I “had perspective.” She enrolled me in art classes and encouraged me to pursue the Arts, which I did.

It is a risk that God takes that he gives freedom to both angels and men. The angels too are created with free will, and they choose or reject the will of God for them at the moment they are created. Satan is traditionally understood to have rejected God. Theologians and the Fathers of the Church have taught that the fall of Satan is the consequence of his having rejected the Beatific Vision. This differs from the thought of him seeing God’s face and then turning away. It is rather the proposal that he rejected the privilege of seeing God in the first place.

In the Office of Readings today Saint Paul used the expression “real widows” when writing to Timothy. “Honor the claims of those who are real widows.” He’s speaking about people - in this case, women - whose needs are genuine. He means to warn Timothy that many will come to him claiming to be in need, but who are really only giving themselves to “selfish indulgence.” He even instructs Timothy, “Refuse to enroll the younger widows, for when their passions estrange them from Christ they will want to marry.

I recently listened to a neurologist speak about heart rate variability. He said it was a good thing. I had heard that before in connection to the popularity of the Apple Watch, but he said something interesting that made me think about the spiritual life. So, heart rate variability measures the differentiation of the spaces between heartbeats. A higher and healthier heart rate variability indicates variation and irregularity between the contractions of the heart. A heart with lower variation beats more evenly.

Today the battle is for our attention. Our attention is what companies are vying for. Our loved ones are fighting for our attention. And the needy beg for our attention. Whoever gains the attention of the person will gain his heart and mind. The world has created a culture of distraction by becoming a marketplace of scattered attention. It is our attention that is being marketed. It is our attention that is being sold. Today the battle is against a world that disintegrates our attention.

I find myself saying to people in the confessional, “We have to let Jesus be for us what we’re trying to be for others.” That is, I have to let Jesus be patient with me if I am to be patient with others. I have to let him be gentle and understanding with me if I want to be gentle and understanding with others. Perhaps this is one way to understand what Our Lord meant when he said, “Love one another as I love you.” I can’t give what I don’t have, but if I let Jesus pour mercy into me then I will have mercy to offer to others.

In her apparitions, Our Lady reminds us of the importance of fasting. It is a discipline held out to us first by her Son when he taught His disciples that some evils can be overcome “only with prayer and fasting.” That in itself should be reason enough for us to fast. How many of us feel broken-hearted and powerless when we think of our loved ones who seem to be in helpless situations. Fasting can help, because fasting has a way of bringing spiritual graces into the life of a person in a way quite unlike any other.

God is still creating right now. We forget that sometimes. Very easily we slide back into thinking that He created the world, set it in motion, and is now watching from a distance. But He is actively creating something new even now, and we are participating in that work. With every decision we make we are either allowing or denying God the permission to make something beautiful of our lives. It is the work of the Christian to arise each morning and to give God permission saying, “Jesus I trust in you.” And at night, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

I heard a priest say about the angels, “At the very moment God creates them they can see the purpose for which they were made, and they can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to their divine vocation.” That insight into the nature of angels is based on Thomas Aquinas. And there is more where that came from. But this morning, on the Feast of the Guardian Angels, I thought it would be special to take a moment to thank our guardian angel for saying yes.

Many people have asked - and perhaps we have as well, from time to time - something like, “How could a good God permit evil?” But what has been striking me lately is the thought that it is precisely because God is good that there is the possibility of evil in the first place.