Guardian Angels
Classic stories
I was having a very tough day. Trying to stay
sober and deal with the loss of my true love and
job at the same time. I begin to speak to my
higher power over a span of three months until
one day I felt so helpless and doubtful. I
remember getting down on my knees begging
for my creator to connect with me so I would
know that he was there and that I was truly not
alone. That day I saw seven rainbows at
different times. What made me think the most
was when a stranger in a green car saw me
parked on the road. I was crying and praying.
He pulled up next to my car, he said "I saw you
here and wanted to see if you were okay!" I
said "Oh, yes I'm okay. He then asked again,"
Are you sure that you're okay?" and again I
replied "Yes". He then said "Okay, you have a
great day."
Instantly it lifted my spirits and I smiled at him with tears in my eyes and
told him to have a good day too. As he was driving away we both
looked at each other in the rear view mirrors as if something told us to.
As I was driving away it dawned on me that what if he were an angel
checking to see if I needed help. This person who I've never saw again,
made me feel so happy and at ease. Just stopping to see if I was alright
was all I needed to know that my higher power had connected with me
through a stranger who I feel was an angel.
One of our sons, was going to a party to meet
a friend and my wife told him not to go; he
said that he was going and left in the car; as he
was going down the highway, he felt angelic
communications to the effect that he should
turn around; he did not pay attention and was
wondering who was he talking to? One exit
before his required exit, he felt that someone
turned the steering wheel and took the car out
that exit; he then felt, that he should listen,
and returned home; he relayed the story to us.
We found out the next day, that there was a
shooting at the party and his friend was
killed. I guess, his guardian angel kept him
from possibly being killed also. Thank you
Guardian Angel!
Hollywood star Denzel Washington has
revealed his spiritual side – by admitting he
believes he is being guided by a guardian
angel. The Oscar-winning actor said he had
an encounter with the celestial being when
he was a youngster. He said: "It looked like
my sister but then I saw wings. But it was
as real as any human being "I walked over
to the door and opened it so some light
came in the room. Then it faded away."
He said he then asked his mother to explain
what he had seen and she told him it was
his guardian angel. The 56-year-old star
added: "Sometimes it's just about
having faith in what I saw and some people
must think that's crazy. But it has worked
for me. "Ever since that night I have
always felt protected."
Origin
The belief that God sends a spirit to watch every individual was common
in Ancient Greek philosophy, and was alluded to by Plato.
According to Leo Trepp, in late Judaism the belief developed that "The
people have a heavenly representative, a guardian angel. This is a new
concept of Zoroastrian origin." The belief that angels can be guides and
intercessors for men can be found in Job 33:23-6, and in the Book of
Daniel (specifically Daniel 10:13) angels seem to be assigned to certain
countries. In this latter case the "prince of the Persian kingdom"
contends with Gabriel. The same verse mentions "Michael, one of the
chief princes," and Michael is one of the few angels named in the Bible.
In the New Testament Book of Jude Michael is described as an
archangel. The Book of Enoch, part of the Ethiopian Orthodox
Tewahedo Church's canon of scripture, says that God will "set a guard of
holy angels over all the righteous" (1 En 100:5) to guard them during the
end of time, while the wicked are being destroyed.
In Matthew 18:10, Jesus says of
children: "See that you do not
look down on one of these little
ones. For I tell you that their
angels in heaven always see the
face of my Father in heaven"
(New International Version). This
is often understood to mean that
children are protected by guardian
angels, and appears to be
corroborated by Hebrews 1:14
when speaking of angels, "Are
they not all ministering spirits,
sent forth to minister for them
who shall be heirs of salvation?"
In Acts 12:12-15 there is another allusion to the belief that a specific
angel is assigned to protect each individual. After Peter had been
escorted out of prison by an angel, he went to the home of 'Mary the
mother of John, also called Mark'. The servant girl, Rhoda, recognized
his voice and ran back to tell the group that Peter was there. However the
group replied, "It must be his angel"' (12:15). With this scriptural
sanction, Peter's angel was the most commonly depicted guardian angel
in art, and was normally shown in images of the subject, most famously
Raphael's fresco of the Deliverance of Saint Peter in the Vatican.
Judaism
In Rabbinic Literature, the Rabbis expressed the notion that there are
indeed guardian angels appointed by Yahweh to watch over people.
Rashi on Daniel 10:7 "Our Sages of blessed memory said that although a
person does not see something of which he is terrified, his guardian
angel, who is in heaven, does see it; therefore, he becomes terrified."
Lailah is an angel of the night in charge of conception and pregnancy.
Lailah serves as a guardian angel throughout a person's life and at death,
leads the soul into the afterlife.
Modern rabbis clarify that people might indeed have guardian angels.
God watches over people and makes decisions directly with their prayers
and it is in this context that the guardian angels are sent back and forth as
emissaries to aid in this task, thus, they are not prayed to directly but are
part of the workings of how the prayer and response comes about.
Christianity
Whether guardian angels attend each and every person is not consistently
believed or upheld by the Church Fathers in Christian thought, and hence
is not an "article of faith", although the concept is clearly seen in both
the Old and New Testaments. According to St. Jerome the concept is in
the "mind of the Church" and he stated that: "how great the dignity of the
soul, since each one has from his birth an angel commissioned to guard
it."
The first Christian theologian to outline a specific scheme for guardian
angels was Honorius of Autun in the 12th century. He said that every
soul was assigned a guardian angel the moment it was put into a body.
Scholastic theologians augmented and ordered the taxonomy of angelic
guardians. Thomas Aquinas agreed with Honorius and believed that it
was the lowest order of angels who served as guardians, and his view
was most successful in popular thought, but Duns Scotus said that any
angel might accept the mission.
Centuries later, in his 1997 Regina Caeli address, Pope John Paul II
referred to the concept of guardian angel twice, and concluded the
address with the statement: "Let us invoke the Queen of angels and
saints, that she may grant us, supported by our guardian angels, to be
authentic witnesses to the Lord's paschal mystery".
Old Testament
The guardian angel concept is clearly present in the Old Testament, and
its development is well marked. The Old Testament conceived of God's
angels as his ministers who carried out his behests, and who were at
times given special commissions, regarding men and mundane affairs.
In Genesis 18-19, angels not only act as the executors of God's wrath
against the cities of the plain, but they deliver Lot from danger; in
Exodus 32:34, God says to Moses: "my angel shall go before thee." At a
much later period we have the story of Tobias, which might serve for a
commentary on the words of Psalm 91:11: "For he hath given his angels
charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways." (Psalm 33:8 and 34:5)
Lastly, in Daniel 10 angels are entrusted with the care of particular
districts; one is called "prince of the kingdom of the Persians", and
Michael is termed "one of the chief princes"; cf. Deuteronomy 32:8
(Septuagint); and Ecclesiasticus 17:17 (Septuagint).
New Testament
In the New Testament the concept of guardian angel may be noted with
greater precision. Angels are everywhere the intermediaries between
God and man; and Christ set a seal upon the Old Testament teaching:
"See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that
their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in
heaven." (Matthew 18:10). A twofold aspect of the doctrine is here put
forth: even little children have guardian angels, and these same angels
lose not the vision of God by the fact that they have a mission to fulfill
on earth. Other key examples in the New Testament are the angel who
strengthened Christ in the garden, and the angel who delivered St. Peter
from prison. Hebrews 1:14 puts the doctrine in its clearest light: "Are
they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them, who shall
receive the inheritance of salvation?" In this view, the function of the
guardian angel is to lead men to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Guardian angels as trustees of children
Jean Daniélou writes in his classic study of
Jewish Christianity that:
It is a remarkable fact that later theology
can be proved to have borrowed the doctrine
of the guardian angel for Jewish
Christianity. Clement of Alexandria, . . .
writes in the Eclogae Propheticae:
'Scripture says that little children who are
exposed are entrusted to a guardian angel,
who brings them up and makes them grow
and they shall be, he says, like the faithful here who are a hundred years
old' (XLI. 1). Later on Clement quotes a similar doctrine, which derives
from the same background, and which he attributes explicitly to the
Apocalypse of Peter: 'Divine providence extends not only to those who
are in the flesh, Peter, for example, says in his Apocalypse, "Aborted
infants are entrusted to a guardian angel, so that having obtained a share
in the gnosis they may arrive at a better destiny"' (XLVIII, 1).
Daniélou also noted:
It is in Jewish Christian theology that the angel of peace occurs, who is
charged with the task of receiving the soul as it leaves the body and
leading it to Paradise. Thus Test. Asher states: If the man dies in peace,
he goes to meet the angel of peace, who leadeth him to eternal life'. The
doctrine does not appear in earlier apocalyptic, in which the angels have
the task of watching over the bodies of the saints (Life of Adam, 46-47);
and in the New Testament, Jude 9, following the Assumption of Moses,
and indeed is more reminiscent of the Hellenistic doctrine of the angelescorts of the soul, though it does not in fact derive from it. Later it was
to have an important place in Christian liturgy ('In Paradisum deducant
te Angeli'), which seems to be one of the ancient inheritances from
Jewish Christianity.
Interaction with Guardian angels
Christian mystics have at times reported ongoing interactions and
conversations with their guardian angels, lasting several years. Saint
Gemma Galgani and Maria Valtorta are two examples, both having also
reported extensive visions of Jesus and Mary. Saint Gemma Galgani, a
Roman Catholic mystic, stated that she had interacted with and spoken
with her guardian angel. She stated that her guardian angel had acted as
her teacher and guide, at times stopping her from speaking up at
inappropriate moments.
The bed-ridden Italian writer and mystic Maria Valtorta wrote The Book
of Azariah based on "dictations" that she directly attributed to her
guardian angel Azariah, discussing the Roman Missal used for Sunday
Mass in 1946 and 1947. In these dictations, each Sunday her guardian
angel, Azariah, commented on the Missal for that day.
Saint Pio was known to instruct his parishioners to send him their
guardian angel to communicate a trouble or issue to him when they
could not travel to get to him or another urgency existed.
Christian prayer
Islam
This is the traditional prayer to one's
guardian angel.
There is a similar Islamic belief in the Mu'aqqibat. According to many
Muslims, each person has two guardian angels, one on each side.
Angel of God, my guardian dear
to whom God's love commits me here.
Ever this day/night be at my side
to light, to guard, to rule and guide.
Amen.
Zoroastrianism
Also known as Arda Fravaš ('Holy Guardian Angels'). Each person is
accompanied by a guardian angel, which acts as a guide throughout life.
They originally patrolled the boundaries of the ramparts of heaven, but
volunteer to descend to earth to stand by individuals to the end of their
days.
Literary usage
An Eastern Orthodox prayer to the Guardian Angel:
O Angel of Christ, my holy
Guardian and Protector of my
soul and body, forgive me all
my sins of today. Deliver me
from all the wiles of the enemy,
that I may not anger my God
by any sin. Pray for me, sinful
and unworthy servant, that
thou mayest present me worthy
of the kindness and mercy of
the All-holy Trinity and the
Mother of my Lord Jesus
Christ, and of all the Saints.
Amen.
Guardian angels were often considered to be matched by a personal
demon who countered the angel's efforts, especially in popular medieval
drama such as morality plays like the 15th century The Castle of
Perseverance. In Christopher Marlowe's play The Tragical History of
Doctor Faustus, of about 1592, Faustus has a "Good Angel" and "Bad
Angel" who offer competing advice (Act 2, scene 1, etc.). These useful
dramatic characters have enjoyed continued popularity in popular media,
as the shoulder angel, often matched by a personal demon, of modern
films and cartoons.
Guardian angels appear in literary works of the medieval and
Renaissance periods. Later the Anglican English physician and
philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82), stated his belief in Religio
Medici (part 1, paragraph 33),
Therefore for Spirits I am so farre from denying their existence, that I
could easily believe, that not only whole Countries, but particular
persons have their Tutelary, and Guardian Angels: It is not a new
opinion of the Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato;
there is no heresay in it, and if not manifestly defined in Scripiture, yet is
it an opinion of a good and wholesome use in the course and actions of a
man's life, and would serve as an Hypothesis to salve many doubts,
whereof common philosophy affordeth no solution.