More on Guardian Angels, their help and our sins

In the light of our own angel's magnificent and unceasing help, there is something of a braggart's pitiful absurdity in the pride we take in the truth we learn and the love we give. There is, too, a note of terror in the exclusive responsibility we have for the success or failure of our own living. Nothing in the universe can withstand the angel's powers, except our own choice. The angel who guards us is of the lowest of the heavenly choirs; yet his power is more than enough for the greatest devil, bowed as the devils are in punishment to the least of the good angels. The only effective obstacle to the angel's guarding love is our own intellect and our own will. We ourselves can defeat such guardianship; and we do in every sin.
Even if angels had never sinned, leaving man free to work out his salvation with no external enemies to fight, we would still have had this guardianship. In the face of the fact of angelic betrayal of God, "our wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against Principalities and Powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places." We, who command our own appetites only with great effort and generous divine help, are no match for such enemies from hell roaming the world like roaring lions. For all our sovereign intellect and will, our battle with the legions of Satan would be a hopeless slaughter of weaponless pygmies by armed giants were it not for divine mercy's restraint of the devil's powers and the protection we receive from the army of heaven.