“Angel of God, my guardian dear. To whom His love commits me here.
Ever this day be at my side.
To light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.”
This is a daily prayer to our guardian angel. It was written by Reginald of Canterbury, a Benedictine monk who lived during the time of Saint Anselm.
In 1670 Pope Clement X set October 2 as the day to honor angels. In 1865 Pope Leo XIII declared it a solemn feast.
War in heaven
“Angel is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is spirit; if you seek the name of their office, it is angel; from what they are, spirit, from what they do, angel” (Saint Augustine).
Angels are beautiful beings with halos and wings. The halo symbolizes wisdom and enlightenment; the wings, their home—in heaven.
The word angel is from a Greek word, aggelos, a translation of mal’akh, a Hebrew word meaning messenger.
Created before the dawn of time, they sang God’s glory during creation. They surpass in perfection all visible creatures, according to Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis.
Angels do not belong to man’s concept of matter, space and time. They are spirits in pure form and pure minds, and superior intelligence with no gender.
God made angels with free will “so they might be capable of making their act of love, their choice of God. Only then, would they see God…enter into that everlasting union with God, we call heaven,” said Leo J. Trese in The Faith Explained.
Many theologians believe that God gave the angels a preview of Jesus as the Redeemer of Man, with all the humiliations He would suffer before His crucifixion.
Aware of their “own spiritual magnificence, beauty and dignity,” many of the angels could not accept the idea. Led by the “most gifted of all the angels, Lucifer [Light Bearer], pride made them say ‘No, we shall not serve.’”
Thus, a war between the bad and the good angels took place. Lucifer led the bad angels, while the good ones were with Saint Michael the Archangel, who were victors.
Lucifer and his cohorts were thrown into hell.
With “perfect clarity of angelic minds and unhampered freedom of angelic wills,” God, even in his infinite mercy, could find no excuse for the sin of the angels.
Fallen angels were commonly called devils. The devils are also called Satan, from a Hebrew word meaning adversary.
Man’s staunch enemy
The devils hate God so they hate His creature—man—too. The devils’ hatred for man is to the core, and forever in the belief that man was created “precisely to replace angels who sinned and fill the gap in heaven left by their defection.”
The devil is “100 percent evil, 100 percent hatred without even the faintest pinpoint of good anywhere in his being,” Trese said in Creation and The Angels.
Because of their hatred for God and man, devils do not only tempt man continuously to sin. They can induce disasters, possess man who are in the state of mortal sin or deceive him with false revelations. They can even “masquerade as an angel of light” (2 Corinthian 11:14).
Father Pio de Pietrelcina’s angel looked like another child and made himself visible to him. But sometimes, the devil made himself look like his guardian angel.
But Father Pio, who had been gifted by God in discerning spirits, could not be deceived. He would utter “Jesus, Mary,” and the devil would disappear, as revealed in his letters to Father Argosino, his spiritual director.
Man’s “struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits” (Ephesians 6:12).
Angelic friendships
God assigned a guardian angel for each man to be at his side 24 hours everyday, to enhance faith, lighten burdens and protect him from dangers.
Man can talk to his angel through prayers. They can influence man’s thoughts and imagination, but never the will.
There are holy people in the Catholic Church associated with angels. Thomas Aquinas is called Angelic Doctor because of his purity of heart and marvelous intelligence. He wrote “voluminously and magnificently about angels,” as Spiritual Creatures and Separate Substances.
In Power of God and Summa of Theology, Aquinas discussed the hierarchies, ministry and speech of angels. On evil, he extensively discussed the fallen angel.
There were saints who were helped by angels in their tasks and challenges.
Saint Zita de Lucca, patroness of domestic workers, left her task in the Fatinelli family to help someone in need. The other servants of the family told the master of the oversight. When they went to investigate, they saw angels baking bread.
Angels would plow the field while Saint Isidore, the farmer, was wrapped in prayer in the church, where he prays every morning before going to work.
Saint Rose of Lima healed the sick and the poor in their neighborhood while holding the statue of the child Jesus; she communicates to angels.
Father Pio’s angel “gladdened his boyhood and made him long for heaven.” It was his angel that woke him up every morning and “sing together praised to the Beloved of our hearts,” said Father Pio to his spiritual confessor.
Saint Hildegard of Bingen, aware that her life was an example of angels, sang praises and glory to the Lord and shared her mystical enlightenments in music, illustrations and writings.
Saints Teresa of Avila, Veronica Giuliani and Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich knew that their angels, enhanced their insights on “understanding of the cross, growth in divine charity and transformation in Christ.”
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Damo-Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.