The fall of the stars, Lucifer and lack of intellectual humility. Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi explains.

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Thanks for tuning in to Everything Catholic again. Now, recently I shared this on the community post as I usually do to help with our learning and reflection together. So, I thought it would be best to release the full video where that post comes from. And here it is. Listen to this. Let us go to the first moment when God revealed himself to the angels. Okay. God first God's first revelation to creation as far as we know occurred when he revealed himself to Lucifer and to all the angels underneath him. You see in heaven there are nine choirs of angels at the top of course we have the s the seraphs and these are the highest angels of which Lucifer was the head. Now we know that after Lucifer failed the test of loyalty to God and therefore failed to inherit a beatotific vision, God had an inferior angel defeat him, namely St. Michael who was an archangel. When God first revealed himself to the angels and including Lucifer, he informed them of his love through infused knowledge of all that which he would entrust to them in particular to Lucifer and of his plan to incarnate the second person of the Trinity within not an angelic nature but a human nature. And this Lucifer could not stomach. You see, Lucifer with infused knowledge was the most informed creature of the universe of both the material and spiritual orders. God so loved Lucifer that he gave him the name of morning shining star and to Lucifer according to the writings of Papus who was a listener to St. John the Apostle and an instructor to St. Irenaeus God entrusted to Lucifer the entire material order. The whole cosmos was given to Lucifer. And maybe this is why in the New Testament Jesus refers to him as St. John refers to him as and St. Paul refers to Lucifer as the prince of this earth, the prince of the powers of the air. Somehow Lucifer has dominion over creation. Where did he get it from? if not from God's first revelation to creation in Lucifer when he told him these things that Lucifer would exert mastery over the cosmos. And this makes sense because when Lucifer fell, a third of the stars fell with him, which is which suggests that Lucifer had authority and association with creation. The stars are part of creation. You know the Bible the Bible does not say that a third of the angels fell. This teachings comes from the church fathers who properly interpreted the scriptures to s to indicate that when the angels fell they were in number a third of the entire heavenly court.

[00:02:54]But this fall was not limited to the angels. It impacted the stars which are physical shining luminaries. What is our star of our solar system? The sun. But not all stars fell. Twothirds remained intact. One/3 fell. But onethird of the angels with the stars fell as well. And this perhaps explains why Lucifer was able to enter something so sacred and pristine as the unblenmished Garden of Eden. After he had fallen, he had authority over all creation, including Eden. Even though he fell, he retained his authority. You see, God never takes away his gifts. This is a teaching also of the church fathers. And therefore, if someone rebelss against God like Lucifer or Judas, God keeps the gifts he gives them. And not only does he keep them intact within the person who has fallen, but he has pre um ordained knowing full well that they would betray him, that he should impart these gifts to them. This is part of God's incomprehensible wisdom, unscrutable wisdom. We don't understand this. Why would God give Judas a Scariot the office of prespiterate and episcopacy knowing he would betray both? Why would God make him an apostle knowing he would betray both and be lost? Did not Jesus say, "Better for him never to have been born." Why would God entrust to Lucifer such power and authority over the entire cosmos, knowing he would fall with a third of the angels and stars? These are things the finite human mind cannot fully comprehend. You see, no human mind, not even the greatest, can fully comprehend God's revelation to man. We can understand something of God's revelation to man but never exhaust the full understanding of this mystery of God's self-revelation. That's why we call God's self-revelation a mystery in many respects and the teachings of the faith mysteries like the trinity and the transubstantiation of Christ and the hypothatic union and the incarnation and so forth and the immaculate conception.

[00:05:10]Right now, God's self-revelation when in the beginning to Lucifer and to the angels was too much for Satan in the sense that God wanted to assume a human nature, not a divine, an angelic nature, not a divine, an angelic nature. Okay? Now, why was this too much for Lucifer to stomach? Well, because the angels are far superior to man intellectually and they far surpass the intellectual prowess of man. That for Lucifer to accept God becoming a man would be for Lucifer to accept the fact that he would have to serve an inferior intellectual being, namely human being. To better understand God's revelation to Lucifer of this truth, think of God telling the human race, including the Pope and the bishops, that from this day forth, you will all serve dogs. You will surpass them intellectually by large scale, but you will have to serve them. Well, I hate to say this to many people listening, but this is already the case. Just go to Los Angeles. You'll see people serving dogs all the time, carrying them in their strollers, the dogs leading them, cleaning up after the dog. I mean, who's serving who? But apart from the humor, this would be the equivalent of, I would think, of God telling Lucifer that he would have to serve man. It would be for us to serve the dog for the rest of our lives. What would your reaction be?

[00:06:47]Right? This makes no sense.

[00:06:49]But if this is what God asks, much like he asked uh Abraham to offer up his son Isaac, right? If we trust God knowing that God is infallible, God never makes mistakes and we don't rationally comprehend this that God asks of us. We in humility welcome it knowing there's a bigger plan that we don't fully understand. One day Pio was asked by an atheist an agnostic or an atheist I think it was an agnostic actually and the difference between the two is that an atheist doesn't believe in God an ex agnostic acknowledges that there is a god but does not feel any personal responsibility or moral responsibility to conform to God's desires and he was he asked pio how could there be a god when the world makes no sense there's killing there's a genocide side there's war there's starvation and God just doesn't seem to care and Pio replied the way we understand God and his interventions and revelations in human history is the same way in which a young boy understands a mother's needle work while sitting at her feet looking at the canvas from underneath as the child looks at the canvas from below what does he see but yarns hanging in disarrayed and confused fashion that appeared to be total chaos.

[00:08:21]And he says to the mother, "What are you doing? You're sitting there for hours on that rocking chair sewing and working the canvas and needle point and all I see is a disarray of yarns." And she smiles and turns around the canvas and he sees this lovely handiwork. Well, similarly, God does not show us much like the mother does not show the child the final product of the canvas of that needle point, but shows them only that which they can perceive from below. It is only in the next life that we come to the great understanding of why God permitted such certain evils. Why God gave certain gifts to people that would abuse them like Lucifer and Judas and why God allows the darn to grow with the wheat with the wheat until the day of harvesting.

[00:09:14]Humility, intellectual humility is essential to understanding not only sacred scripture which is couched in in allegorories, in parables, in symbols, especially the book of revelation and canacle of canacles. Lucifer rebelled because not only did he not want to serve a less endowed intellectual creature, namely humans, and by the way, the letter to the Hebrews states that we do not serve angels, angels serve us.

[00:09:40]And Paul adds that in the end we will judge angels. Therefore butressing the truth that angels although intellectually superior to us are inferior in nobility to us by virtue of the incarnation of Christ in human nature. Lucifer also rebelled because God with infused knowledge informed him that man would be the center of creation in particular man's human will which is this the point of arrival of all the acts God has destined for creation and it is for this reason that it is a human being that would be the source of all grace namely Jesus Christ and another human being who would be the mediatrix of all grace namely the blessed virgin Mary human beings would be the center of creation in particular their human will so consider for example wherever you're seated or listening or standing in around you be it a room or a park consider all the objects in within your visional scope all those objects consider that all that which God made throughout the cosmos including the 200 billion galaxies each of which contains 200 billion stars Consider all that which is around you analogous to everything that God issued for in creation in five days before creating man on the sixth. Now on the sixth day, God introduces man to the equation of creation and makes him the center thereof all that which existed before man for perhaps millions of years. You know, when God says to Adam, when God says in the Bible that he created through ostensibly written in large part by Moses, the book of Genesis, that he created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh, created the universe in six days, including man and rested on the seventh. It does not mean literal 247 hour cycles. Rather, they were epics. He uses that word when creating the universe. Epics. He created the universe in six epics. And an epic is a long period of time. Right? So consider that things may have pre-existed Adam by thousands if not millions of years including the angels. And yet God would make him the center of creation. Sort of like that parable where the workers came into the vineyard. Some at 9:00 in the morning, some at noon, some at 3 p.m., and at 5:00 p.m. Jesus gives them all the same wage. And the first workers are angered because they worked longer and existed longer. And yet God gave to those who came last the same wage, right? And this is one of the reasons why Lucifer rebelled as well, because he was not going to be the center of creation, but man would be, in particular, the human will of man.

[00:12:34]Because God in his unscrutable wisdom chose it this way. And Lucifer failed the test of obedience to the plan of God when he said, "I will not serve this plan." Because he lacked intellectual humility. This is God's ways. He chooses the best wine. For last, he chooses that which the world considers contemptable.

[00:12:58]Because as St. Paul says God's power is most displayed through weakness is best portrayed through weakness.

[00:13:09]See we have to redimension our our perception of creation the material world around us that was given under given to Lucifer when he was good that was placed under his dominion when he was second in charge of heaven so to speak. You see, there is a metaphysical or a supernatural law that dominates the physical and the natural law. And this is manifest in the Garden of Eden with the first natural disaster that ever occurred, which was original sin.

[00:13:41]So long as Adam remained obedient and compliant with in uniformity with and under the dominion of God's divine will, all creation, the material cosmos around him was in a perpetual springtime and maintained a divine order of perfect uniformity, unity, harmony, bliss.

[00:14:08]Everything was thriving with life in what is today now a pale shadow of the past. These burnt out cinders we call planets floating in the immensity of space or one time fertile. Science has proven that because they're in a constant cooling off phase. So at something is responsible for this disorder in creation leading it to a state of ongoing decay where we have the four seasons. The fall of the leaves, the freezing of winter, these things did not exist before original sin. So sin, which is a supernatural reality, was the cause of the material disorder in the universe. The first natural disaster was caused by a supernatural infraction. Hence the co the correlation between the material and the spirit and the immaterial the physical and the metaphysical. Original sin brought about natural disaster. The more man rebelss against the will of God today the more natural disasters increase.

[00:15:12]So sin and natural disasters has a cause effect relationship. Just as conformity to God's will or grace and creation's freedom has a cause effect relationship.

[00:15:26]We find this in Paul's 8th chapter to the Romans where he affirms that all creation groans with eager longing waiting to be freed from its slavery to corruption and expectation of the revelation of the sons of God. You are blessed to be born in this generation. However sinful, this is the most blessed generation that there ever was and that there ever will be. You may think, wait a minute, after this generation, there will be the era of peace. But God's divine will will reign on earth. There will be like peace on earth. It won't be Eden. There will still be original sin and therefore still the need for the sacraments. There will still be the hierarchy in the priesthood and so forth. But sin will be mitigated because Satan will be in chained as the book of Revelation chapter 20 articulates and there will be this period of peace. So why wouldn't they be more blessed than we are?

[00:16:23]Because Jesus takes more delight in suffering and merit than in the lack thereof. You see the reason why the angels in a way envy us is because we can merit through suffering and sacrifice which they cannot do. And the same with the souls in heaven. The saints in heaven cannot merit anymore.

[00:16:46]Their time is up. They cannot offer sacrifice or sufferings to obtain merit.

[00:16:52]We can. And in this sense, we are the most blessed generation there ever will be.

[00:16:58]>> Well then, that will be all for the video this time. And as always, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us. And hopefully all of you have learned so much from this video.

[00:17:06]And remember, ever you have any feedback or suggestion, please let us know in the comments below. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your continuous support, contributions, and prayers. And until the next one, thanks again for watching, and may God bless you.