Angels, angels everywhere!
April 5, 2005 | 12:00am
Like other children, I prayed with all sincerity and innocence during my childhood, beseeching my guardian angel not to leave my side:
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.
My mom had given me a beautifully illustrated children’s prayer book, and I still recall the grand sight in full color of a radiant angel protectively following its ward, a little girl.
And then weeks passed… months… years… decades – and I found myself a "mature" adult – with nary an angel in sight!
Where oh where was the angel of my childhood? The far more important question would be: Where or where is the faith that made me believe in angels? For truly, one has to be of a trusting and of a necessarily grateful spiritual disposition to believe that our Lord God so loved us He even sent angels to protect us, to guide us and to enlighten us through the days.
The presence of angels in our midst was cast to me in a whole new light after I read A Book of Angels by Sophy Burnham. Using true, unforgettable encounters people have had with angels, the book expounds on the ways angels work. After reading the book I began to understand why people, events, or ideas were presented to me at the specific times that they had come, or how they had eventually enlightened me or led me to good.
Acknowledging that we have guardian angels is affirming that we have the kind of Father who so wants to ensure that we make the right choices while we live on earth, He has provided us round-the-clock spiritual protection, consultation and consolation in angels. That’s how generous He is, how kindly He always thinks of our welfare. It is just such a pity that we fail to utilize, much less maximize, the awesome gift of having angels in our midst. How do we request to be touched by their influence, when we can barely acknowledge that they are indeed present among us?
How does one know if angels are at work? The author presents three hallmarks: 1) Angels leave one with a "calm serenity and the people to whom they have come to know, even when they could not see the figure itself, that they’d been brushed by wings of silence." 2) An angel’s message is always "Fear not!" "Don’t worry…" "Things are working out perfectly. You’re going to like this. Wait." And lastly, 3) "Angels come in all sizes and shapes and colors, visible and invisible to the physical eye. But always you are changed from having seen one. You remember. You are never quite the same again."
Still, even with angels at work, why do people seem indifferent, or why do they seem as if they have no inkling that they are already being touched by the Divine?
"It seems," explains Ms. Burnham, "(angels) take whatever form the visited person is willing to accept; and sometimes no form at all – a dream, a thought, a surge of power, a sense of guidance. They don’t seem far removed from natural events. This explains why angels are easily explained away, and why skeptics can pad down the corridors of their intellect, unhindered by the intrusion of the inexplicable because (we observe) nothing whatsoever happens to such rationalists that cannot be naturally explained. And this is the most miraculous marvel of them all! It is that skeptics do not experience the mysterious and divine, but rather that the mysteries are presented to them in such a flat and factual, everyday, reasonable way so as not to disturb; for this is the rule: no one receives more information than he can bear. Therefore it seems angels bring messages in the form – even the dialect – that each recipient can hear."
After reading this book, I realized that angels have been helping me constantly – albeit often subtly – and that they’ve taken my prayers seriously, helping to have them answered to a far greater extent than I had asked. When one thinks of the mere presence of angels in our midst, one would certainly get a sense that anything and everything is touched by the hand of Divinity. Nothing will seem mundane anymore. There is nowhere that God will not make His presence felt, if only we seek this presence.
When we instinctively call out to our angels especially when we need spiritual enlightenment, our instinct will then be to listen to and to do what God would want us to do — for His angels would not provide us with contrary advice. Always, always, they will work to bring us to good. It’s up to us to heed them or not.
Call on our guardian angels then. Trust that they will lead us to good. Call on them in the sincere and trusting way we did when we were children. For was it not Christ Himself who said that only those with the faith of a child would enter His kingdom?
(Your insights are most welcome! E-mail the author at annmondo@yahoo.com)
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.
My mom had given me a beautifully illustrated children’s prayer book, and I still recall the grand sight in full color of a radiant angel protectively following its ward, a little girl.
And then weeks passed… months… years… decades – and I found myself a "mature" adult – with nary an angel in sight!
Where oh where was the angel of my childhood? The far more important question would be: Where or where is the faith that made me believe in angels? For truly, one has to be of a trusting and of a necessarily grateful spiritual disposition to believe that our Lord God so loved us He even sent angels to protect us, to guide us and to enlighten us through the days.
The presence of angels in our midst was cast to me in a whole new light after I read A Book of Angels by Sophy Burnham. Using true, unforgettable encounters people have had with angels, the book expounds on the ways angels work. After reading the book I began to understand why people, events, or ideas were presented to me at the specific times that they had come, or how they had eventually enlightened me or led me to good.
Acknowledging that we have guardian angels is affirming that we have the kind of Father who so wants to ensure that we make the right choices while we live on earth, He has provided us round-the-clock spiritual protection, consultation and consolation in angels. That’s how generous He is, how kindly He always thinks of our welfare. It is just such a pity that we fail to utilize, much less maximize, the awesome gift of having angels in our midst. How do we request to be touched by their influence, when we can barely acknowledge that they are indeed present among us?
How does one know if angels are at work? The author presents three hallmarks: 1) Angels leave one with a "calm serenity and the people to whom they have come to know, even when they could not see the figure itself, that they’d been brushed by wings of silence." 2) An angel’s message is always "Fear not!" "Don’t worry…" "Things are working out perfectly. You’re going to like this. Wait." And lastly, 3) "Angels come in all sizes and shapes and colors, visible and invisible to the physical eye. But always you are changed from having seen one. You remember. You are never quite the same again."
Still, even with angels at work, why do people seem indifferent, or why do they seem as if they have no inkling that they are already being touched by the Divine?
"It seems," explains Ms. Burnham, "(angels) take whatever form the visited person is willing to accept; and sometimes no form at all – a dream, a thought, a surge of power, a sense of guidance. They don’t seem far removed from natural events. This explains why angels are easily explained away, and why skeptics can pad down the corridors of their intellect, unhindered by the intrusion of the inexplicable because (we observe) nothing whatsoever happens to such rationalists that cannot be naturally explained. And this is the most miraculous marvel of them all! It is that skeptics do not experience the mysterious and divine, but rather that the mysteries are presented to them in such a flat and factual, everyday, reasonable way so as not to disturb; for this is the rule: no one receives more information than he can bear. Therefore it seems angels bring messages in the form – even the dialect – that each recipient can hear."
After reading this book, I realized that angels have been helping me constantly – albeit often subtly – and that they’ve taken my prayers seriously, helping to have them answered to a far greater extent than I had asked. When one thinks of the mere presence of angels in our midst, one would certainly get a sense that anything and everything is touched by the hand of Divinity. Nothing will seem mundane anymore. There is nowhere that God will not make His presence felt, if only we seek this presence.
When we instinctively call out to our angels especially when we need spiritual enlightenment, our instinct will then be to listen to and to do what God would want us to do — for His angels would not provide us with contrary advice. Always, always, they will work to bring us to good. It’s up to us to heed them or not.
Call on our guardian angels then. Trust that they will lead us to good. Call on them in the sincere and trusting way we did when we were children. For was it not Christ Himself who said that only those with the faith of a child would enter His kingdom?
(Your insights are most welcome! E-mail the author at annmondo@yahoo.com)
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