- [Part 1 HERE - suffering a failed but violent rape]
- [Part 2 HERE - unwitting stardom in kiddie-porn films]
- [Part 3 HERE - a suggestion]
- [Part 4 HERE- angels!]
- [Part 5 HERE - responding to some comments.]
Sorry about the aspect ratio of the picture above. I wanted to get some rays of the ad orientem sunrise shining through one of the Blessed Sacrament angels in the chapel of Holy Souls Hermitage during this octave of Christmas.
There are no aspect ratios with my guardian angel or yours. They are always right in our face according to the gracious will of our Heavenly Father, whose Face they behold now. Yikes!
Angels, while instantly available to carry out the justice of God, which they carry out with a continuous humble reverence before the throne of the Most High, also rejoice exceedingly upon the Lord’s mercy accepted by any wayward charge of theirs. They are totally in awe of Jesus and the wounds he received for us, and still bears on His risen body as signs of great love for us.
The love of the angels is a fiery love, prompt, attentive, entirely solicitous for our welfare, especially our spiritual well being. They have no greater joy than to see us in reverence before God, in humble thanksgiving before Jesus, rejoicing in the charity they see in the friendship of God and the likes of even ourselves, me and… and… you.
But we are slow to believe, or at least to act on our belief, are we not? I wonder if, to the angels, our hearts might seem to be a bit icey, much like this hoar frost smashing its way out of the frozen forest floor, which I saw this morning near the hermitage:
This kind of hoar-frost is extremely brittle, fragile, and will crumble with the very least pressure, much like our hearts. Yikes! They are very patient, of course, these angels. I have an idea that my guardian angel must have been chosen for me as being the most patient of all angels. After all, I’m still alive. Thanks, guardian angel!
The thing is — and this is the point — we shouldn’t be so… so… — should I say it rather frankly? — we shouldn’t be so danged ashamed about getting to know our guardian angels, as if this were a most impossible thing in this family of faith. They weren’t sent to us to remain aloof, to never provide us with encouragement and direction and advice. That would be a faithless indictment of our Heavenly Father and His most tender solicitation for our welfare, right? And we wouldn’t want to be shaking our fists at our dear Heavenly Father, would we? I should think not. So, a bit of advice:
Don’t be fearful of asking your guardian angel for his protection, encouragement, direction and advice.
Don’t be fearful of thanking him really very much for all that you have recognized as coming from him and for all that you are too obtuse to notice. I mean, I know that I am so very much blind when it comes to this. But one’s heart and soul is opened up a bit with requests and with thanksgiving.
Also, the more we take their advice, learning to be instruments of the love and truth of the Most High in the midst of all our terrible weakness, the more we are adept at taking this advice, the more agile of soul and heart and mind, the more ferocious in love of God and love of neighbor. That’s not our fault. That’s God’s fault, and that of our angels. And that’s O.K., right?
Recently, I recounted a rather violent moment of my childhood (Part 1 HERE), in which I made a claim about an intervention of my guardian angel, which wasn’t even so much for me (that too) but for someone else. I included that bit in the story because, well, because that’s what happened. And while I was reprimanded with some feedback on that post, I stand behind what I said. It’s not my fault!
I mean, if God loves us, if our guardian angels are there for us, are they not to be praised and thanked? None of this has any reflection on anyone who takes note of such interventions, which, indeed, are the normal course of affairs in our everyday lives. If we only knew! But we are so blind. And we so romanticize anything to do with angels as that which is fantastic, from fairytale land, indeed, as that which is an escape from reality, an opiate for the undiscerning masses, too incredible to really take place.
But our angels see reality, God, in the Face. Don’t offend the angels. They don’t take kindly to that. Indeed, they cannot forgive (Exodus 23,20-21):
20 “See, I am sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. 21Be attentive to him and heed his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not forgive your sin. My authority resides in him.
The angels can rejoice in our Lord’s forgiveness of us. And that’s totally cool. But don’t be presumptuous of our Lord’s forgiveness in this regard either. They reflect His love for us. We don’t want to mock our Lord’s love for us, do we? God will not be mocked.
Look at it this way. If as a little kid, in a very trying circumstance, in which another little kid’s life had to be saved, I got a bit of advice from my guardian angel, in a rather forceful way, that doesn’t mean that I was holy or anything like that, not at all. Rather, I must have been so very incredibly obtuse and lacking in all agility of soul and mind that I had to be rather impressed upon in order to see what I was supposed to do. Get it? I was a jerk. That’s why that happened that way.
There are others who took the direction of angels, one being the great Joan of Arc. But she was a saint not because she heard or even followed what Saint Michael had to tell her. She herself learned to be a great saint because she responded to the love of God. Just getting smacked down by one’s angel has nothing to do with holiness. Mind you, it is a great gift to be so smacked down. That kind of sets things right. And for that we can thank our angels.
Indeed, it belongs to the patience of an angel to smack us down should this be what it takes for us to take notice of that which they were sent to let us know. Such patience! Ouch!
Hah! Angels are totally cool. Thank yours right now: “Um… Thanks, guardian angel!”
There. Made you do it. You were talking to an angel. Pretty cool, huh?
Just make sure to do it more often. 
Accompany me, Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D., as I begin life as a Catholic Priest-Hermit by choice. Holy Souls Hermitage is dedicated to the sanctification of my fellow priests, bishops, deacons & seminarians going through the purgatory of this life or the next. Prayer and sacrifice go up, of course, for both Benedict XVI and the next Successor of Saint Peter. 
How curious readers’ responses can be, George. I thought your interpretation of the violent altercation with the troubled boy in the basement, understood through the intercession of your guardian angel, was brilliantly illuminating
And, no, you most certainly were not to blame.
This might be distracting but I saw this on newadvent.com recently, too cool. I suppose some hearts present a bigger calving challenge for Guardian Angels, like mine, than just hoar-frost:
“CHASING ICE” captures largest glacier calving ever filmed – OFFICIAL VIDEO
That’s totally awesome. The end of the last ice age.
We’re so icey that it took incomparably, infinitely more to melt us. The fiery love of the Most High to burn on the Cross for us. Finally, we melt. Truly, this is the Son of God. Thanks be to Jesus.
at the foot of the Cross, calving, who knew?
I’m sure most of us Catholics have a certain group of Saints we try to keep around us regularly and in my case the only two (besides Our Lady of Sorrows) that have remained part of my prayer life for as long as I can remember have been my guardian angel and St. Michael.
Years ago when I was a very litle boy my grandmother taught me the guardian angel prayer before bed after I had a nightmare and in my childlike simplicity I took it to heart and rarely put it down. As for St. Michael, again I remember right above the Church my grandparents would take us to on Christmas Eve there was this awesome giantic bas relief fresco type thing of St. Michael standing on Satan’s head and threatening him with a huge spear that made an indelible impression on me. If that was the angel that could cast demons into hell why wouldn’t I want him on my side?
For all those who are wary of guardian angels, just think about it for a moment and reflect that these incomparable powerful beings have been given to each one of us to help get us to heaven. Their primary job aside from glorifying God is to help us get to heaven, ward off demons and temptations etc and get us safely to at least purgatory. Is that not an awesome mystery of faith?
Justin: I received this in an email from a cloistered nun: I am praying that many priests and bishops down to the faithful read this post. I have a very sad experience of knowing some priests who denied the existence of the angels and it was a drama to get them say the Mass of the Angels as we do every month. The angels are wonderful and only those who keep a faithful friendship with them experience this.
Whenever I run across faithlessness in regard to angels among priests, I don’t hesitate to ask them if they think therefore that Jesus is a damned fool for being consoled in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane for our sins. I ask them if they think that Jesus was a damned fool for exorcizing fallen angels. I ask them why they are priests.
Good for you, Father George! You tell ‘em!
I personally am glad I have a gaurdian angel because I know I can be a blockheaded thing at times and need all the help I can get.
Thank you Gaurdian angel!
Thank you Abba for giving each of us such a faithful guardian. I believe we actually see our angels at times but do not realize who they are. Someday when we get to heaven, we will say, “Hey! It’s you!’ When we finally ‘meet’ our Guardian Angels face to face (or probably more correctly – spirit to spirit) .