Probably few of us pay much attention to the existence of angels, but we ought to. Aside from their own importance, the existence of angels provides an assurance of the dignity of the human person. Angels are purely spiritual creatures formed in God’s image. We too are possessed of spiritual capacities of intellect and will, which should never be reduced to mere physical or chemical phenomena, which is what much of modern science, in a spectacular overreach, attempts to do.
The Bible contains 328 uses of the word “angel” as well as other references that refer to angels without using the word. Take for example Daniel 7.10: “A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.” Not only does this passage proclaim the glorious praise angels give to God, but it also states that their numbers are beyond number.
St. Thomas Aquinas said as much. Thomas, known as the angelic doctor because of his extensive analysis of angels, agreed they are vast in number. Because angels have no sensory organs, they are uninfluenced by irascible appetites or by what their friends and families think. Each angel is its own species and so enjoys independence from cultural pressures.
Canadian Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor does not write directly about angels in his tome, A Secular Age. But he does describe the contemporary world as disenchanted in comparison with the “enchanted” pre-modern times of our ancestors. That was a world of spirits, demons and moral forces in which meaning came from objects outside the personal self rather than, as we now suppose, strictly from the human mind.
The word “enchantment” stirs up images of fairies and leprechauns, which may make the business of learning from the past appear to be a venture in superstition. But Taylor is serious about something important being lost in the modern world’s attempts to reduce all being to the material.
A world without God is one without grace, a world where either human initiative prevails or where even such initiative is seen as caused solely by material influences. We are either gods or mere effects of material causes. In the latter case, free will is an illusion. We bear no responsibility for either our greatness or our idolatries.
But if God is real, angels can be real too. Our relationship with God (and angels) is marked by their generosity. Humans are credibly described as beings created in God’s image. More than rational animals, we are embodied spirits. Hope exists for us to rise above the antagonisms and violence which bedevil the world. Our choices are not illusions but genuine contributions in God’s kingdom and to the betterment of humanity.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church depicts people and angels as partners in adoring the thrice-holy God. We sing together in unison. More than that, angels lead us on the path of salvation. “The whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels. . . . From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. ‘Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.’ (St. Basil the Great)”
I confess to never having had an experience that I can definitively attribute to help from my guardian angel. But some experiences have made me wonder – near escapes from death and injury, and little twinges urging me to forsake a possible course of action. Perhaps those fortuitous events were the result of divine intervention, perhaps the help of an angel or just coincidence.
But the nature of angelic intervention will leave one uncertain to its origin. Angels, as I have said, are spiritual beings, and human knowledge mostly originates through the physical senses. We shouldn’t expect to know when our angels have helped us. But in faith, we can be grateful for the times they have.
Today angels, when they receive attention at all, are trivialized in saccharine greeting cards and in the movies. But our faith teaches that they are real and important. When I remember I still say that prayer to my guardian angel that I was taught as a child. I should remember more often.