https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=1PVO8oxSFuI
The first important thing as we do this, as we look at the elements that St. Gregory brings together, and this is a rule I think for all our interpretations of symbols in the Bible or in the liturgy, is that symbols are not moral things. That is, the elements that we find in the liturgy or the elements that we find in the Bible, the things in themselves, they’re not necessarily good or bad. They’re places of meaning you could say. Okay? So what’s important on this map of meaning isn’t so much where the thing is on the map, but which direction is it pointing to. So if you think back at that ladder of divine ascent, it doesn’t matter how high you are on the ladder, if you’re falling down, you’re falling down. If you’re at the bottom of the ladder but you’re going up, you’re in a much better place than that person at the top who’s falling down. And so everything in this map of meaning has a dual possibility we could say. It could have a light side or a dark side. And so because we’re talking about a trip, I’m going to start with the actual movement of the trip. And in the movement of the mountain there’s two possibilities, right? You can go up or you can come down. And in St. Gregory’s description of this, it’s actually very interesting because he shows us this duality, how the same thing can have a light and a dark side. And so the way he does it, he talks about Aaron’s, about Moses’ brother Aaron. Okay? So I hope everybody knows this story of Moses because I’m not going to go through too much of the details of the actual story, but Aaron was Moses’ brother and God chose Aaron to be Moses’ helper. So the way St. Gregory interprets that is he says that Aaron is akin, is analogical to our guardian angel. That angel that God places with us to counsel us, to entice us into making that ascent up the divine ladder, up the mountain. And the angel does this through reasonable thoughts and through encouragement. But if you know the story of Moses, you know that Aaron is also the one who made the golden calf, right? And who brought Israel to engage in licentiousness and idolatry. So how do we reconcile those two things? So St. Gregory tells us a secret. He tells us that, quote, Okay, so what are we talking about? I think most people here would know what he’s referring to. And what he’s referring to is this. And I think, I mean, the faster that we just reconcile ourselves with the fact that this is what he’s talking about, the best. Because the imagery might seem silly on a first reading, but it’s only silly if we’re materialists who think that angels are, you know, fleshy people with wings and devils have spiky tails. But once we get rid of the materialist blindfold that often entraps us, then we experience this every day of our lives. I mean, anybody who has fought a passion or else given into a passion, then suddenly wakes up and thinks, like, why did I do that? You know, where does that come from? I mean, everybody knows that we have this fight in us all the time. But if you’re struggling with this image, if you find it too difficult to accept, I mean, I’ve already showed you this image in iconic form at the beginning. It’s this one. Look at what’s happening on that image. On one side, there are the angels encouraging and on the other side, there are the demons bringing down. All right. So the brother who is our counselor, we could call him that little voice in our head, our conscious, whatever you want to call it, can become a vehicle for the angel or the demon, depending on which side the person decides to go.