Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels
Get to know your guardian angel.
Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels
Reading: Job 9:1-12, 14-16
Responsorial Psalm: 88:10bc-11, 12-13, 14-15
Alleluia: Psalm 103:21
Gospel: Matthew 18:1-5, 10
Guardian Angels
Today is the Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels. I admit that my relationship with my personal guardian angel is probably not the strongest. But I do ask for God to send them to protect the people that I know and care about. I was reading the Catechism of the Summa Theologica while in the airport on my way back from New York last week and one of the things I read about was angels. In “The First Part” VII - OF THE ANGELS: THEIR NATURE paragraph c it talks about where angels exist. The normal place is in heaven, but they can travel from place to place in an instant. There is a saying that says, “Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly.” While humorous, it is the case that your guardian angel could be in the presence of God one moment and protecting you in a car crash the next.
In VIII - THE INNER LIFE OF THE ANGELS, paragraph b, it asks,
Do the angels know all things? and the answer is no. This is followed up a few questions later by “Do they know our secret thoughts?” and the answer is still, no. “For these thoughts depend on our free will and thereby are not necessarily linked up with external events.? But this is followed up by the question of is it possible that our secret thoughts can be known to them and the answer changes to, yes. Why is that, because God can reveal it to the angel, or we can by our free will. (Pegues, p.19)1
I am not a theologian by any stretch of the imagination. But let us ponder on this.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church 336 states
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."Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.
I would make this recommendation to you. Get to know your guardian angel. When you say your prayers, ask for its help with your day. Ask for its protection. Don’t hide your thoughts from it so that it can do the work that God wants it to do in your life.
A note: You should not attempt to name your guardian angel. The below is from the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy Principles and Guidelines published in December 2001.2
217. Popular devotion to the Holy Angels, which is legitimate and good, can, however, also give rise to possible deviations:
when, as sometimes can happen, the faithful are taken by the idea that the world is subject to demiurgical struggles, or an incessant battle between good and evil spirits, or Angels and daemons, in which man is left at the mercy of superior forces and over which he is helpless; such cosmologies bear little relation to the true Gospel vision of the struggle to overcome the Devil, which requires moral commitment, a fundamental option for the Gospel, humility and prayer;
when the daily events of life, which have nothing or little to do with our progressive maturing on the journey towards Christ are read schematically or simplistically, indeed childishly, so as to ascribe all setbacks to the Devil and all success to the Guardian Angels. The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture
Job’s Second Reply
In today’s reading, we have Job replying to Bildad’s first speech from Chapter 8. Job feels that God is against him and that he is not worthy of God’s attention.
Job describes the power and awesomeness of God such as God moving mountains and makes the starts in the heavens. He compares this to his own insignificance to God. We begin to see now what has been compared to a “court case” with God. This will continue on through the end of the Book of Job, and end in Job 42:5.
14 How then could I give him any answer,
or choose out arguments against him!
15 Even though I were right, I could not answer,
but should rather beg for what was due me.
16 If I appealed to him and he answered me,
I could not believe that he would listen to me;Job 9:14-16
There is great suffering in the world and if you happen to live in the United States, there is a lot of evidence of this in the southern Appalachian Mountains right now after Hurricane Helene. But it is not just there, it is everywhere. People look at the US and think wow, so rich, nothing could be wrong there. But there is suffering. Each day I drive around the small city where I live and see people pushing their grocery carts with everything that they own in them. Today when I was at a redlight while heading to Mass, there was a guy collecting money for a food pantry. I don’t normally carry cash, so I gave him my last $5 bill.
Our response to suffering needs to be like Job’s. Yes, there is suffering but we need to understand that sometimes we are not going to understand God’s plan in it. Is it his plan to teach us how to show compassion to our neighbor? Is his plan for those that may be suffering to turn to him for comfort and healing?
The Greatest in the Kingdom
In Matthew’s gospel today, the disciples ask who the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is and Jesus’ response is to take a child and place it in their midst.
3 and (Jesus) said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.
This is the same as what we heard in Luke 9:46-48 in Monday’s reading. We need to examine our faith and how we approach it. Are we approaching it with a simple, childlike faith? Do we try to overcomplicate with complex prayers? I pray the Rosary, Divine Chaplet, and Chaplet of the Ten Evangelical Virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary every day. I try to get to the rest of the prayers in my handbook as time allows, but I don’t always get to. Tonight, as I was waiting for my son to finish teaching his class, I stayed in the church and prayed. I did the Rosary, but then I had time for just personal prayer. This is something that my spiritual director wants me to work on. I need to bring my faith back around so that it is more childlike.
Guardian Angel Prayer
Angel of God, my Guardian Dear,
To Whom God’s Love Commits Me Here,
Ever This Day Be at My Side,
To Light and Guard,
To Rule and Guide.
Amen
Today’s Music:
Whitacre, A. (2024). Catechism of the “Summa Theologica” of Saint Thomas Aquinas for the Use of the Faithful. Refuge of Sinners Publishing, Inc.
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. (2001). Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy Principles and Guidelines. Vatican City.