Angels With One Wing

I recently finished Anne Rice's Of Love and Evil, the second novel in the Songs of the Seraphim series. Toby O'Dare, a hit man who has known profound grief, is visited by Malchiah, an seraph who bears a message of God's mercy and the need to make reparation for sin. Thus far, that opportunity has involved travelling back in time and space ("Angel Time") to protect God's chosen people, the Jews, from persecution. In the first novel in the series, Angel Time, Malchiah brings Toby to thirteenth century England where, in the guise of a Dominican friar, he defends a Jewish family that has been falsely accused of murdering their young daughter. Similarly, in this second novel, Toby is taken to sixteenth century Rome, where he intervenes in the case of a Jewish physician, who has been falsely accused of poisoning his Christian patient. It is a delightful series, well-grounded in the Catholic theological tradition with much owed to Thomas Aquinas, the "Angelic Doctor", that creatively explores the rapport between angels and humans. One hopes that Ms. Rice's recent defection from the Church (which is a topic for another post) will not adversely impact the series.

Here a just a few things that I love about the series:

It recognizes angels as the personal representatives of God's love and protection. In other words, God could--and often does--protect and guide us humans directly, but His love is such that He creates spiritual beings for the sole purpose of bearing His love to us.

It acknowledges the reality of spiritual warfare. If there are spiritual beings who have chosen from the moment of their creation to love and serve God and to collaborate in our salvation, then there must also be spiritual beings who have chosen to not love and serve God and who work toward our destruction.

It has an historical perspective. There can be no doubt that Ms. Rice is an enthusiastic student of Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance history. I am particularly appreciative of the fact that Rice has chosen neither to defame the Church (in a Dan Brown-esque way) nor to ignore her very real faults and failures through the centuries. Especially heartbreaking is the mistreatment of the Jews in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.

On a final note, I thought that a quotation prefacing the book reflects well the overarching theme of the series:

"We are each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another."
--Luciano de Crescenzo

Highly recommended.