“Daniel answered, ‘Long live the king! My God sent the angel to shut the lions’ mouth and they have not injured me; he judged me innocent, and moreover I had done your majesty no injury’.” (Daniel 6:22-23)

Daniel seems to be just out of one trouble when he gets into the next one. From the burning furnace to the lion-pit. He didn’t get on quite well with kings, or rather with the king’s courtiers who burned with jealousy for him. As they could find no fault with him, they invented excuses, and this time they accused him of praying three times a day facing Jerusalem. This was a crime before King Darius, and the prophet had to be thrown to the lions. But the angel of the Lord was there ready to protect him. He shut the lions’ mouths, and Daniel spent the night in peace in their company.

“The king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no woman was brought to him, and sleep eluded him. He was greatly agitated and, at the first light of dawn, he rose and went to the lion-pit. When he came near he called anxiously, ‘Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you serve continually been able to save you from the lions?’ Daniel answered, ‘Long live the king! My God sent his angel to shut the lions’ mouths and they have not injured me; he judged me innocent, and moreover I had done your majesty no injury.’ The king was overjoyed and gave orders that Daniel should be taken up out of the pit. When this was done, no trace of injury was found on him, because he had put his faith in his God. By order of the king those who out of malice had accused Daniel were brought and flung into the lion-pit along with their children and their wives, and before they reached the bottom the lions were upon them and devoured them bones and all. (Daniel 6:20-25)

We all have enemies. That is why we need angels. Lion-pits are ready, not in the crude torture of ancient barbarians, but in the veiled threat of calumnies and jealousy, of hurting criticism and poisoned irony, of talking behind our back and stealing our rights, of exaggerating real defects or inventing imaginary ones, of anonymous letters and secret denounces, of open opposition and direct insult.

No dearth of little lions in the king’s pits. And no dearth of angels who keep us safe in them. What I now desire is to learn for me the attitude Daniel achieved in this trial. He does not get angry at King Darius who personally had given the order for him to be thrown into the lion-pit. He does not protest against injustice, not even reproaches the king the cowardice with which he has acted. Quite the contrary, as soon as the king shows at the rim of the pit after the sleepless night without women, Daniel cheerfully greets him without a shadow of resentment: ‘Long live the king!’

Long live whoever does not think as I do, long live whoever misunderstands me, insults me, derides me. Let all of them live for ever, and let me greet them from the bottom of my heart without any bitterness, without judging, without setting myself above them, without hardening, without withdrawing. May the king live for ever!

I guess that Daniel learned his attitude from the angel who spent the night with him shutting the mouths of the lions. The angel not only protects us from the lions’ attack, but even more from the inner danger of our hurt feelings, from our growing desire of vengeance and feelings of spite and spirit of pride. Little use would it be my angel keeping me from the lions if he wouldn’t keep me from my own pride.

Angel of the lion-pit! Protect me from the lions that harm my body and the lions that harm my soul!