They may be the most visible angels in this era where pop culture is god. But there are other angels in our midst – those we can’t see but whom many believe to be protecting us and inspiring us to do good. Angels may very well help us cleanse our society of so much criminality, evil, selfishness, corruption and violence if the people pray hard enough and possess strong faith.
Even Hollywood has been producing films about these fascinating heavenly beings, from the 1998 romance movie City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage as the love-struck angel Seth and Meg Ryan as the sunny heart surgeon to the 1996 movie Michael with John Travolta playing a scruffy, unshaven and chain-smoking angel who’s got to do one last good deed before heading back to heaven.
In City of Angels, the angels are attired in all-black outfits with trench coats. Nicolas Cage falls from grace for the woman he loves. He wanders the city of Los Angeles (a.k.a. the City of Angels) like hundreds of fellow angels who flutter around the city’s hospitals and crisis sites to help humans who die to make the transition from death to the afterlife.
Are real angels susceptible to human emotions like romance? Are they always brooding and creepy as portrayed by Nicolas Cage? The actor himself shared his more cheerful view of the true nature of angels:
"Love is probably full of that, full of angels. In love, you can feel this incredible emotion and heal people, or really pray for people, or try to lend comfort."
Is there really a battle between the symbols of good and evil in popular culture? How true is some pundits’ claim that the bestselling Harry Potter books on sorcery and witchcraft glamorize the world of the dark forces?
The most popular gin in the Philippines and one of the world’s biggest gin brands in total production is Ginebra San Miguel, the bestselling drink from La Tondeña, which years ago was absorbed by San Miguel Corp. It has the popular "Marca Demonyo," a colorful pre-war artwork of painter Fernando Amorsolo, which graphically depicts a triumphant archangel Saint Michael slaying the fallen angel Lucifer on all its bottle labels.
A lot of people love angels so much, this phenomenon has spawned a massive cottage industry worldwide for a wide range of angel products, Internet sites and other businesses. Some claim that popular Western obsession with angels is a positive reawakening of spirituality as a reaction to the crass materialism and cynicism of the world. Some claim that this love for angels is a pure New Age fad, that this trend is more associated with attempts to make the world’s weary people feel good or lucky.
A few years ago, this writer visited the Quezon City apartment of then fast-rising bold star Rosanna Roces along Madasalin Street to discuss a real estate transaction. She was wearing only a long white T-shirt that did not conceal her beautiful physique and she called out to her gay assistant to get her underwear which she then wore. Although she was irreverent and not religious, Rosanna Roces surprisingly had a large collection of angel figurines on the tables and adorning the walls of her kitchen and dining areas.
The world-famous evangelist Billy Graham in his book Angels: God’s Secret Agents said the Bible mentions angels almost 300 times. The Reader’s Digest once published the experience of top Philadelphia neurologist Dr. S.W. Mitchell one tiring winter night, when a poorly dressed little girl knocked on his door, asking him to help her very sick mother. The upset doctor dressed, followed the girl through the snow and arranged for medical care for the mother who was desperately ill with pneumonia. When the doctor complimented the lady on the persistence and intelligence of her daughter, the sick woman looked at him strangely and said her daughter had died a month ago. Was the doctor called in that hour of desperate need by an angel of God?
According to Reverend Billy Graham, who has counseled numerous American presidents for decades, angels are created beings by God. They can be visible or invisible, they have the ability to change their appearances and they can shuttle in a flash from heaven to earth and back again. King David recorded 20,000 angels coursing through the skyways of the stars, as mentioned in Psalm 68:17. In the book of Genesis, God placed angelic guardians called cherubims at the east of the Garden of Eden, they each used "a flaming sword" to bar Adam and Eve’s return after they had sinned.
In Deuteronomy 33:2, the Bible recorded that 10,000 angels descended on Mount Sinai to confirm God’s presence as He gave the Law to Moses. Angels protected the Jews in their exodus out of slavery in Egypt. One night in Egypt before the Exodus, the destroying angel swept over the land as God’s minister of judgment and killed all the first-born of every unbelieving Egyptian household or Israeli family. An angel in Daniel’s time shocked the ruler of the Babylonian kingdom by writing on the wall about his impending downfall during a lavish feast the king hosted for his thousands of nobles. In II Kings chapter 9 of the Bible, an angel one night struck the Assyrian military camp and killed 185,000 soldiers.
What are the names of some angels? According to the Bible, Michael is the only archangel. Before his rebellion against God, Lucifer was also an archangel equal or perhaps superior to Michael. The angel Gabriel’s name is from the Hebrew language meaning "God’s hero," and he is God’s messenger of mercy and promise. Billy Graham disagrees with the famous poet John Milton and other scholars who describe Gabriel as archangel. Gabriel was cited by Daniel in the Old Testament, and he also announces the birth of John the Baptist in the New Testament. Gabriel’s most important message was at the first Christmas, when he informs the teenaged Virgin Mary about Jesus.
In terms of rank and authority, the archangel and angels are followed by seraphim (probably from the Hebrew word meaning "love") and the cherubim. The seraphim exists to praise God in heaven while the cherubims are powerful. Former archangel Lucifer, "the son of the morning," and his rebel forces were cast from heaven but still continue their fight. How could this eternal war between good and evil be possible in God’s perfect universe? The apostle Paul describes this question as "the mystery of iniquity" in II Thessalonians 2:7. The great classic poet Dante reckoned that the fall of Lucifer (who became known as Satan) and his rebel forces happened within 20 seconds of their creation, and that this originated in the pride of Lucifer. Other writers like John Milton said that the creation and eventual fall of these rebel angels happened immediately before the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Whatever happens to the world and the universe, we who believe in God shall eventually live happily ever after according to the Bible. In the New Testament in Revelations 5:11, the apostle John tells of having seen 10,000 times 10,000 angels ministering to the Lamb of God in the throne room of the universe. The book of Revelations also foretells an optimistic future, that armies of angels will appear with Jesus at the Battle of Armageddon when God’s enemies will gather for their final defeat.
Do you have inspiring angel experiences about hope and faith and unexplained miracles? Do you worry too much about US President George W. Bush waging additional wars to make the world safe from weapons of mass destruction in North Korea, Syria or Iran? Are you depressed and inconsolable? Do you have heartaches and grave crises in your life? Are you weary and weak? Don’t dismay or lose hope, maybe the answers to your fervent prayers will come soon through God’s greatest secret service agents called Angels.