This post is a continuation of “Praying for Your Kids.”
Having grown up Catholic but not catechized very well, there is so much about our faith that I just didn’t get. When I married a Protestant, we attended services which consisted primarily of singing and preaching/teaching. In this context, the Bible was a focal point and I learned a lot of Scripture, which was a good thing. However, this, too, is where I was taught many anti-Catholic things.
So when the Lord started to bring me back to my Catholic roots, I put all that I knew, or thought I knew onto the table and I told the Lord that I didn’t want anything that He didn’t want me to have. One of those subjects were angels.
Some Protestants have a dislike for Mary and the Saints because they feel that any attention given to anyone but Jesus is idolatry. I adopted this attitude and applied that to angels as well even though there are some non-Catholics who don’t mind paying attention to angels. Go figure.
Anyway, I avoided angels as well just to play it safe in the idolatry department.
Upon my return to Catholicism, imagine my surprise when I learned that Our Lady, the Saints and Angels all deserve our attention. They are helpers in varying degrees with their own rolls to play. Just look at the Chaplet of St. Michael. Who knew there was a hierarchy, rank and assignments for each choir or angelic hosts?
Admittedly, I have not studied the rolls of angelic assistance and so I lean mostly on the prayers the Church has supplied for us. For example:
Guardian Angel Prayer
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.
To St. Michael
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl though the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Just recently, however, two different times, I heard or saw two different people on EWTN who, I’m sorry to say, I can’t remember who they are, but I believe one person had written a book about angels. The other person was telling of his own experience with his devotion to his own guardian angel and those of his children.
The latter explained that as a father of several girls, there were simply some things that, as a man, he could not understand about the female psyche. So every time he expected to have a discussion with his daughters, he silently greeted and prayed to his daughter’s guardian angel that the encounter would go well. And it would.
In discussing his book, the former described a similar story. He explained that one time he was in a disagreement with an associate at work who wanted to go handle a particular problem in a way that he believed had ethical issues. He prayed to his guardian angel to go to speak to the other person’s guardian angel that the associate might come around. The next day, the other person called and indeed, he had decided on the ethical course of action.
Having heard those two stories in short proximity to each other, I may have mixed them up, but their experiences made quite an impression on me, that I started praying to my guardian angel and requesting increased angelic protection for myself. Not only for protection for my body but also for my mind.
Our Guardian Angels are there waiting for us to engage them in our lives to assist us in the spiritual aspects of our human existence. God has provided a variety of ways, such as angels and saints, to help us through this life. Let’s make use of His generosity.
