Praying & Learning With the Angels

Fr. John Horgan

Studying the nature of the spiritual beings can help us to purify the aspect of our nature that corresponds to theirs: the soul. The soul is usually thought of as having three faculties: (1) memory, the sum total of the experiences of our lives with which we construct our identity; (2) intellect or mind, by which we reason and understand and grow in knowledge; and (3) will, by which we love and choose what is good and true and beautiful. These spiritual faculties are “who we are” after we die; when we come into the Lord’s presence for the particular judgment, they are flooded with His light. When we enter Paradise, we experience the Beatific Vision and the Communion of Saints through them.

Here on earth, we can be attracted to and choose what is sinful because our intellect is clouded and our will is weak. As part of the spiritual life, we must progress in purifying our memory, our will, and our intellect so that Christ may reign in us, ruling all these powers of our soul. That is how we become holy.

The angels can help us in this task by leading us to and teaching us about prayer and adoration. Further, they lead us to see comprehensively God’s plan for us. The example and prayers of the angels can help us to cease cultivating the memory of past sins and nursing past hurts; to direct our mind to the truth of God; and to strengthen our will so that we might choose what is good and right day after day.

Cardinal Newman points out the difference between the way human beings and angels think and understand. This is his description of human learning:

We know, not by a direct and simple vision, not at a glance, but, as it were, by piecemeal and accumulation, by a mental process, by going round an object, by the comparison, the combination, the mutual correction, the continual adaptation, of many partial notions, by the employment, concentration, and joint action of many faculties and exercises of mind.

This article is from His Angels at Our Side. Click image to preview other chapters.

Angels don’t do any of these things. An angel’s intellectual knowledge starts about where ours leaves off. His knowledge of the world is part of his very nature; it is innate and total. He starts off with the complete picture that you and I, with time and hard work, have to piece together. The turn-of-the-century theologian Cardinal Alexis-Henri-Marie Lépicier wrote this about the angelic intellect:

Although an angel’s intellect is not his own substance, just as our intellects are not our own substances, yet he possesses such penetration, that he is able, by a single glance, to take in the whole field of science lying open to his perception, just as we, at a glance, can take in the entire field of vision lying exposed to our view.

Now, angels do grow in knowledge because they have participated in the history of salvation and in the revelation of Christ. As Christ has progressively disclosed Himself through the course of salvation history, the angels, too, have added to their understanding and experience of God. We might say, too, that an angel grows in knowledge and understanding through his ministry on our behalf. As an angel accompanies a man or woman as guardian and sees how the grace of God grows in that person, and how he or she experiences fulfillment through the love of God and the life of the sacraments, the angel comes to know the ways of God in a new and powerful way.

And what does that knowledge serve in the angels? What is its purpose? Well, it must be for the increase of their love and adoration because, as we have said, the angels were created for adoration. They constantly behold the face of God in Heaven (Matt. 18:10). They live to proclaim His glory. Their entire being, all of their activities, and all that they experience in their relationship with us contributes to this praise and magnifies in them a happiness that is beyond the comprehension of anyone who has not experienced it.

Even while they are watching over us, even while they are de­claring their dominion over all creation as servants of the Lord, they are at the same time gazing on the face of God in Heaven. It is this loving and adoring union with God that is the source, not only of their praise, but also of all the help and clarity they offer to us — that is, the grace they communicate to us that flows from God Himself.

Praying with the Angels

If we want to benefit from the companionship and guardianship of the angels — if we want our minds, our hearts, and our memories to be purified and sanctified — we must look to the angelic way of adoration. Remember: Mankind, too, was created to adore and to love God above all else. We can adore Him here with these bodies on this earth, but we can view Him only with the eyes of faith; as St. Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). Even so, our worship is, by the grace of God, true and good and worthy.

The angels, though, can amplify our praise by reflecting it directly to God, “face to face.” This is what we call upon them to do in every Mass when we pray the Gloria, adapted from the angelic praise the Shepherds heard on Christmas night and found again in the book of Revelation: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!” (Rev. 7:12).

It is precisely because the angels never turn their faces from the Lord that they can carry out His missions for them on earth. In the same way, if we want to grow in the spiritual life; if we want to become holy; if we want to be divinized, as the Fathers of the Church describe the life of grace, then we should ask the angels to help us never to turn our faces away from the face of God and to be mindful of Him always and in everything, just as they are. In loving our neighbor, we love God; in loving our God, we learn to love our neighbor. Let us ask the angels, therefore, for three gifts: First, to pray always; second, never to withdraw our face from the face of God; and third, to live, to act, to move, and to choose always in the presence of God. Whenever we pray the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy), we can remember these three angelic characteristics and order our prayer of petition in union with their praise.

We learn how to pray always by remaining united to the will of God, by asking that the Lord’s will be done in us and through us in our every action. One way to make this possible is to offer up short prayers throughout the day. Every time we finish something — whether it’s writing a work memo, finishing class preparations, correcting a law brief, washing the dishes, or changing a diaper — we can offer up our efforts to the Lord with a little prayer: “For the love of You, my God.” Or: “Jesus, I offer You this work for Your glory and that I may be transformed and changed.” And when we have this spirit of prayer, addressing the Lord with little aspirations throughout the day, we will also learn to offer up to the Lord the crosses and the hardships of daily life.

One of the most powerful and thought-provoking prayers that we can say is the very simple, “Jesus, I want what You want for me.” It is a prayer that little children can learn in just a moment and that we can pray until the very last moment of our lives. To say these words means that we believe and trust that Jesus not only wills what is the best for us but that He knows better than we do what is best for us. It is a prayer that expresses dogmatic faith and personal loving trust.

Of course, in a very real sense it is no different from repeating the words of the Our Father, “Thy will be done,” or the Blessed Mother’s reply to St. Gabriel, “Behold the handmaid (or, for a man, servant) of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word.” However, sometimes we need to take the words of Scripture or the formal prayers of others and make them our own by repeating them in simple, short, and direct language that is adapted to our needs and our stage in the spiritual life. Even the saints did this; for example, one holy Italian priest and famous spiritual writer, Father Dolindo Ruotolo (1882–1970), used to say in moments of anxiety or frustration, “O Jesus, I surrender myself to you; take care of everything!”

“I want” is an expression that we hear our children say constantly; but if we are honest, it is even more often repeated, even if silently or subtly, by adults. We grown-ups also mistake wants for needs and are thus drawn to things that may satisfy us for a moment but soon leave us empty and hurting. Overcoming our selfishness, bending our pride, submitting our will to that of another out of love — these are lessons that we must learn and live in our family life, in our human loves, and in our friendships as well as in our relationship with Almighty God. Yet, because we do not always realize the full consequences of our actions for ourselves and others and because our previous sins (even if they are forgiven) and our unexamined emotions often influence our decisions, such learning may take an entire lifetime.

The holy angels, unlike ourselves, have an intelligence and a way of understanding that sees a decision in all its dimensions, as well as the potential consequences of each possible choice. They are not influenced by past sins, since they remained faithful to the Lord in their moment of trial, and they are not subject to emotions as we experience them. If we turn to them in our moments of choice and decision, asking for their clarity, strength of purpose, and obedience to the will of God, our minds will become ever clearer and our wills shall become ever freer as we pray, “Jesus, I want what You want for me.”

There will be times when it will be difficult to say this little prayer because it is not always easy to let go and to let God act. And there may be moments when we clearly know that what we want is not what Jesus wants for us or from us. Love and obedience begin in the will before they are expressed in our actions. If we do our best to will what He wills and to ask for His grace with humble and trusting hearts, He will not refuse us. And our little prayer, however weak, will be magnified by our angel’s presence and his joyful shout, “Here I am Lord, I come to do Your will.”

The angels will always watch over us with wonder and awe if we give ourselves to Our Lord, remaining in His presence and uniting our daily crosses to His. As we do so, we’ll find that we will make Him present to others. Other people will find in us a magnetically attractive beauty — the beauty of holiness, the beauty of Christ shining through us. And we will find that the Lord makes use of us to be messengers to others, to collaborate with His holy angels, and to bring our brothers and sisters closer to Him, the Source of love and life.

https://catholicexchange.com/praying-learning-angels

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a chapter in Fr. Horgan’s His Angels at Our Side: Understanding Their Power in Our Souls and the World, which is available from Sophia Institute Press. 

This grieving girl witnessed her father travel from purgatory to heaven

All because she had three Masses said for the repose of his soul.

Philip Kosloski

During the 17th century, a grieving young girl approached Benedictine Abbot Millán de Mirando at the monastery of Our Lady of Montserrat. She begged the abbot to say three Masses for her deceased father.

The young girl was totally convinced that these Masses would speed her father on his way to heaven, releasing him from the pains of purgatory. Moved by the girl’s child-like faith, the abbot said the first Mass the next day.

During the Mass the young girl was kneeling and as she looked up she saw her father near the altar where the priest was saying the Mass. She described her father as “kneeling, surrounded by frightening flames” and located at the bottom step of the altar. The priest was alerted to this miraculous phenomenon and he instructed the girl to place a piece of tissue where her father was kneeling. The tissue immediately started on fire for all to see, though the priest could not see the child’s father. This represented her father being purified by the flames of purgatory.

A second Mass was said for the repose of her father’s soul and again the little girl saw her father. This time he was up a step standing next to the deacon and was “dressed in a vibrantly colored suit.” At this stage her father was still in purgatory, but no longer touched by its flames.

At the third Mass she saw her father for the last time. During the Eucharistic celebration he was “dressed in a snow-white suit,” but then something extraordinary happened at the conclusion of Mass. The little girl exclaimed, “There is my father going away and rising into the sky!” She no longer had to worry about the soul of her father as she knew with confidence that he had reached the gates of heaven.

https://aleteia.org/2017/11/02/this-grieving-girl-witnessed-her-father-travel-from-purgatory-to-heaven/

Interacting with the Angels

Interacting with the Angels

These activities may seem to be extraordinarily broad, especially when we think of the angels directing every aspect of the material world and participating in the work of salvation.  And yet, when we consider that the scientific principles that guide our world — the laws of gravity and so on — are not just created but sustained by God, then it shouldn't seem to be so far-fetched that He might delegate some part of the management of the universe to His ministering spirits.

Indeed, in the ancient world, philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato believed that this was so — and they did not have the benefit of revelation.  They knew nothing of Scripture or of what God had revealed to the Jewish people.  In the early Church,  St.  Augustine believed that every visible thing in the world has an angelic power placed over it, and later on Cardinal Newman, the great convert who wrote in the nineteenth century, went as far as to say in a sermon that, when it comes to the mysteries of existence, "we have more real knowledge about the Angels than about the brutes [animals]."[22]

How Many Angels Can You Fit . . . ?

Holy Scripture speaks to us on many occasions of the great number of angels that exist, a number that is impossible for our minds to calculate or even to estimate.  In the book of Daniel, we  read that the prophet saw the Lord as "the Ancient of Days"— an image of God's eternity — and saw that "a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him" (Dan. 7:10, 22).  These massive numbers of angels are meant to communicate to us a numberless multitude far too great for our minds to understand.  And in the New Testament, St. Luke tells us that "a multitude of the heavenly host" appeared to the shepherds in Bethlehem on the night the Savior was born.  St. Thomas Aquinas taught that the number of angels was far greater than that of any of the material creatures.  He wrote in the same article of the Summa Theologiae that the more perfect creatures were made in greater numbers because God's creation is primarily ordered toward the perfection of the universe (I, q. 50, art. 3).

The Scriptures really do not reveal anything to us about the number of fallen angels or demons, though some theologians argue that a proportion of good angels to bad can be found in the book of Revelation, which says that a dragon's tail sweeps a third of the stars out of the heavens (12:3).  "Stars of heaven" may be a metaphor for the angels, and the dragon a metaphor for the Devil.  In any case, we can safely assume that the number of faithful angels far exceeds those who fell away.

Our Lord Himself alludes to the great number of angels during His arrest when He tells Peter, "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matt. 26:53).  In the time of Our Lord, a legion of Roman soldiers consisted of nearly seven thousand men, so Our Lord here seems to be impressing upon Peter — and upon us — the truth that He has all the hosts of Heaven, "a great multitude," at His command.

One of those angels had appeared a moment before, comforting Jesus in Gethsemane after He had accepted the chalice of suffering for us and for our salvation (Luke 22:43).  Popular devotion has identified that angel as a special comforter of the sick and those who care for them.  Catholic nurses, particularly after the 1940s, often recited prayers to the angel of the Garden of Gethsemane so that they could be strong in tending to the patients entrusted to their care, particularly during the long and lonely hours of the night.  For those who take care of suffering relatives or sick children, and for those who work in health care, devotion to this angel may be a source of great grace and wisdom to help them find the right words to say to those who suffer.  It is in Christ and His Sacrifice that we find significance and meaning for our human pains.  If we are called to be angels of consolation for the sick, we can call down the grace of God through the intercession of that angel who was chosen by the Lord to bring comfort to His Divine Son on the night of His Passion.

O Angel of Gethsemane, chosen by the Father to bring strength and consolation to Jesus during His agony, I ask you to be with me now as I keep watch over my loved one who is sick and suffering.  Help me to offer my best care, love, and protection to this child of God.  May my words and my touch be filled with gentleness, my presence bring comfort, and my prayers bring rest and healing sleep.  Do what I cannot do, O loving Angel, to bring healing and strength to soul and body, according to the Father's will.  Amen.

The Angelic Nature

When we say that angels are pure spirits, it means that there is nothing material about them at all.  They lack a permanent body and even a physical shape.  Nonetheless, we often have very definite ideas of what angels should look like, ideas that have come down to us from paintings and sculpture, Christmas cards and pop culture.  Although these representations are often charming and attractive, we have to remember that they are all the product of imagination — robes and wings and swords and chubby little faces may have symbolic or emotional value, but they can also mislead us about the real nature of the angels.

We human beings are formed with and limited by matter; that is, we have a certain size, a certain shape, a certain weight, and so on, and we move from one place to another at a certain speed.  Our material self binds us to a definite framework— the laws of the material world, including time and space.  But angels have none of the limitations— nor the capacities— that come with a material body.  Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing, passions, emotions — these are all tied to the physical nature of human persons but are totally foreign to the angelic experience.  These capacities affect us in many ways, allowing us to experience pleasure and mirth, suffering and death.  But the angels are subject to none of these.

So, when we see depictions of angels as winged humans, we have to remember that this has very little in common with the presentation of the angels in the Holy Scriptures, the Tradition of the Church, or the lives and experiences of the saints.  Holy men and women of all ages always described angels in terms of light, power, and majesty.  Even when they appear in "gentle form," like the angel in the form of a child who appeared to St. Catherine Labouré, there is something unworldly about them that fills the soul with awe and reverence.  They have been sent to us with a message, and their purpose is to communicate it to us in words and signs.

The powers and faculties of the angels are purely spiritual ones.  This means that angels have an intellect, a mind, and a free will.  Angels can know and can love.  But the ways in which angels arrive at knowledge and love are very different from the ways in which we do.

Our way of getting information and ideas into our minds is through the senses— for instance, through hearing when we converse or through sight when we read, as you are doing right now; then our intellect works through the information and processes it.  We observe the world around us and our observations are carried to our mind, which sorts and analyzes and forms conclusions.  We eventually reach the truth, but sometimes only after errors have crept in, due to misperceptions, misunderstandings, and so on.  The human intellectual process is one of trial and error.

The angels don't have to go through this process.  With them, there are no trials because there are no errors.

Learning from the Angels

Studying the nature of the spiritual beings can help us to purify the aspect of our nature that corresponds to theirs: the soul.  The soul is usually thought of as having three faculties: (1) memory, the sum total of the experiences of our lives with which we construct our identity; (2) intellect or mind, by which we reason and understand and grow in knowledge; and (3) will, by which we love and choose what is good and true and beautiful.  These spiritual faculties are "who we are" after we die; when we come into the Lord's presence for the particular judgment, they are flooded with His light.  When we enter Paradise, we experience the Beatific Vision and the Communion of Saints through them.

Here on earth, we can be attracted to and choose what is sinful because our intellect is clouded and our will is weak.  As part of the spiritual life, we must progress in purifying our memory, our will, and our intellect so that Christ may reign in us, ruling all these powers of our soul.  That is how we become holy.

The angels can help us in this task by leading us to and teaching us about prayer and adoration.  Further, they lead us to see comprehensively God's plan for us.  The example and prayers of the angels can help us to cease cultivating the memory of past sins and nursing past hurts; to direct our mind to the truth of God; and to strengthen our will so that we might choose what is good and right day after day.

Cardinal Newman points out the difference between the way human beings and angels think and understand.  This is his description of human learning:

We know, not by a direct and simple vision, not at a glance, but, as it were, by piecemeal and accumulation, by a mental process, by going round an object, by the comparison, the combination, the mutual correction, the continual adaptation, of many partial notions, by the employment, concentration, and joint action of many faculties and exercises of mind.[23]

Angels don't do any of these things.  An angel's intellectual knowledge starts about where ours leaves off.  His knowledge of the world is part of his very nature; it is innate and total.  He starts off with the complete picture that you and I, with time and hard work, have to piece together.  The turn-of-the-century theologian Cardinal Alexis-Henri-Marie Lépicier wrote this about the angelic intellect:

Although an angel's intellect is not his own substance, just as our intellects are not our own substances, yet he possesses such penetration, that he is able, by a single glance, to take in the whole field of science lying open to his perception, just as we, at a glance, can take in the entire field of vision lying exposed to our view.[24]

Now, angels do grow in knowledge because they have participated in the history of salvation and in the revelation of Christ.  As Christ has progressively disclosed Himself through the course of salvation history, the angels, too, have added to their understanding and experience of God.  We might say, too, that an angel grows in knowledge and understanding through his ministry on our behalf.  As an angel accompanies a man or woman as guardian and sees how the grace of God grows in that person, and how he or she experiences fulfillment through the love of God and the life of the sacraments, the angel comes to know the ways of God in a new and powerful way.

And what does that knowledge serve in the angels?  What is its purpose?  Well, it must be for the increase of their love and adoration because, as we have said, the angels were created for adoration.  They constantly behold the face of God in Heaven (Matt. 18:10).  They live to proclaim His glory.  Their entire being, all of their activities, and all that they experience  in  their  relationship  with  us contributes to this praise and magnifies in them a happiness that is beyond the comprehension of anyone who has not experienced it.  Even while they are watching over us, even while they are declaring their dominion over all creation as servants of the Lord, they are at the same time gazing on the face of God in Heaven.  It is this loving and adoring union with God that is the source, not only of their praise, but also of all the help and clarity they offer to us — that is, the grace they communicate to us that flows from God Himself.

Praying with the Angels

If we want to benefit from the companionship and guardianship of the angels — if we want our minds, our hearts, and our memories to be purified and sanctified— we must look to the angelic way of adoration.  Remember: Mankind, too, was created to adore and to love God above all else.  We can adore Him here with these bodies on this earth, but we can view Him only with the eyes of faith; as St. Paul wrote, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face" (1 Cor. 13:12).  Even so, our worship is, by the grace of God, true and good and worthy.

The angels, though, can amplify our praise by reflecting it directly to God, "face to face."  This is what we call upon them to do in every Mass when we pray the Gloria, adapted from the angelic praise the Shepherds heard on Christmas night and found again in the book of Revelation: "Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!" (Rev. 7:12).

It is precisely because the angels never turn their faces from the Lord that they can carry out His missions for them on earth.  In the same way, if we want to grow in the spiritual life; if we want to become holy; if we want to be divinized, as the Fathers of the Church describe the life of grace, then we should ask the angels to help us never to turn our faces away from the face of God and to be mindful of Him always and in everything, just as they are.  In loving our neighbor, we love God; in loving our God, we learn to love our neighbor.  Let us ask the angels, therefore, for three gifts: First, to pray always; second, never to withdraw our face from the face of God; and third, to live, to act, to move, and to choose always in the presence of God.  Whenever we pray the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy), we can remember these three angelic characteristics and order our prayer of petition in union with their praise.

We learn how to pray always by remaining united to the will of God, by asking that the Lord's will be done in us and through us in our every action.  One way to make this possible is to offer up short prayers throughout the day.  Every time we finish something — whether it's writing a work memo, finishing class preparations, correcting a law brief, washing the dishes, or changing a diaper— we can offer up our efforts to the Lord with a little prayer: "For the love of You, my God."  Or: "Jesus, I offer You this work for Your glory and that I may be transformed and changed."  And when we have this spirit of prayer, addressing the Lord with little aspirations throughout the day, we will also learn to offer up to the Lord the crosses and the hardships of daily life.

One of the most powerful and thought-provoking prayers that we can say is the very simple, "Jesus, I want what You want for me."  It is a prayer that little children can learn in just a moment and that we can pray until the very last moment of our lives.  To say these words means that we believe and trust that Jesus not only wills what is the best for us but that He knows better than we do what is best for us.  It is a prayer that expresses dogmatic faith and personal loving trust.

Of course, in a very real sense it is no different from repeating the words of the Our Father, "Thy will be done," or the Blessed Mother's reply to St. Gabriel, "Behold the handmaid (or, for a man, servant) of the Lord.  Be it done unto me according to thy word."  However, sometimes we need to take the words of Scripture or the formal prayers of others and make them our own by repeating them in simple, short, and direct language that is adapted to our needs and our stage in the spiritual life.  Even the saints did this; for example, one holy Italian priest and famous spiritual writer, Father Dolindo Ruotolo (1882–1970), used to say in moments of anxiety or frustration, "O Jesus, I surrender myself to you; take care of everything!"

"I want" is an expression that we hear our children say constantly; but if we are honest, it is even more often repeated, even if silently or subtly, by adults.  We grown-ups also mistake wants for needs and are thus drawn to things that may satisfy us for a moment but soon leave us empty and hurting.  Overcoming our selfishness, bending our pride, submitting our will to that of another out of love — these are lessons that we must learn and live in our family life, in our human loves, and in our friendships as well as in our relationship with Almighty God.  Yet, because we do not always realize the full consequences of our actions for ourselves and others and because our previous sins (even if they are forgiven) and our unexamined emotions often influence our decisions, such learning may take an entire lifetime.

The holy angels, unlike ourselves, have an intelligence and a way of understanding that sees a decision in all its dimensions, as well as the potential consequences of each possible choice.  They are not influenced by past sins, since they remained faithful to the Lord in their moment of trial, and they are not subject to emotions as we experience them.  If we turn to them in our moments of choice and decision, asking for their clarity, strength of purpose, and obedience to the will of God, our minds will become ever clearer and our wills shall become ever freer as we pray, "Jesus, I want what You want for me."

There will be times when it will be difficult to say this little prayer because it is not always easy to let go and to let God act.  And there may be moments when we clearly know that what we want is not what Jesus wants for us or from us.  Love and obedience begin in the will before they are expressed in our actions.  If we do our best to will what He wills and to ask for His grace with humble and trusting hearts, He will not refuse us.  And our little prayer, however weak, will be magnified by our angel's presence and his joyful shout, "Here I am Lord, I come to do Your will."

The angels will always watch over us with wonder and awe if we give ourselves to Our Lord, remaining in His presence and uniting our daily crosses to His.  As we do so, we'll find that we will make Him present to others.  Other people will find in us a magnetically attractive beauty — the beauty of holiness, the beauty of Christ shining through us.  And we will find that the Lord makes use of us to be messengers to others, to collaborate with His holy angels, and to bring our brothers and sisters closer to Him, the Source of love and life.

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/spiritual-life/interacting-with-the-angels.html

Endnotes

22  John Henry Newman, Sermon 13, "The Invisible World," in Plain and Parochial Sermons.
23  John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, discourse 7.
24  Alexis-Henri-Marie Lépicier, The Unseen World (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1906), pp. 27–28.

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The 9 choirs of angels and the roles given them by God

Angels are spiritual beings created by God, naturally invisible to the human eye, but all around us and constantly carrying out the tasks God has given them.

Traditionally the angels are classified into what are called nine “choirs” or “ranks.” This division is based on nine names of angels found in Sacred Scripture.

Saint Paul writes about them in his letters:

[May] The eyes of your heart [be] enlightened, that you may know what the hope is of the glory of his inheritance in the saints … Which he wrought in Christ, raising him up from the dead, and setting him on his right hand in the heavenly places. Above all principality, and power, and virtue, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. (Ephesians 1:18, 20-21)

For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and in him. (Colossians 1:16)

The Old Testament adds Cherubim and Seraphim (in multiple places) and “archangels” are named both in the New Testament (Gabriel, Michael) and in the Old Testament (Raphael and Michael).

St. Gregory the Great puts all of these “choirs” into a single list in one of his homilies. “We know on the authority of Scripture that there are nine orders of angels, viz., Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominations, Throne, Cherubim and Seraphim.”

It is believed that each of these choirs was given a specific task by God. Theologian and philosopher Dr. Peter Kreeft gives a nice summary of these different choirs and their roles in his book Angels and Demons:

The first three levels see and adore God directly:

The seraphim, the highest choir, comprehend God with maximum clarity, and therefore their love flames the hottest. (“Seraphim” means “the burning ones.”) Lucifer (“Light-bearer”) was once one of them. That’s why he’s still very powerful and dangerous.

The cherubim contemplate God too, but less in himself than in his providence…(“Cherubim” means “fullness of wisdom.”)

 The thrones contemplate God’s power and judgments. (Thrones symbolize judicial, juridical power.)

The next three choirs fulfill God’s providential plans for the universe, like middle management personnel:

The dominations or “dominions” (…”authority”), command the lesser angels below them.

The virtues receive their orders from the dominations and “run” the universe, so to speak, especially the heavenly bodies. (“Virtue” used to mean power, might, or energy.)

The powers serve the virtues by fighting against evil influences that oppose the virtues’ providential plan.

The last three choirs directly order human affairs:

The principalities care for earthly principalities, that is, cities and nations and kingdoms.

The archangels (such as Gabriel) carry God’s important messages to man.

Ordinary angels are the “guardian angels,” one for each individual.

This traditional ordering of angels is an accepted Catholic belief, though not part of official Church dogma. St. Thomas Aquinas is another Church theologian who found these different choirs of angels throughout Scripture and sought to find a coherent way to arrange them. Aquinas devotes an entire question in his Summa Theologiae to this concept and Kreeft’s summary above is partially derived from it.

What’s interesting is that according to this arrangement, only archangels and (ordinary) angels have direct dealings with humans. The many multitudes of the other choirs of angels are either with God or govern the world invisibly. An exception is St. Francis of Assisi, who was given the stigmata, or wounds of Christ, by a seraph. For this reason he is known among Franciscans as “our Seraphic Father.”

What a feast it will be for our eyes when, as Christ told Nathaniel, we “will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

https://aleteia.org/2017/09/28/the-9-choirs-of-angels-and-the-roles-given-them-by-god/

Queen of Angels

Howard Kainz

There is an ongoing dispute among Californian history buffs regarding the original name of the city of Los Angeles. After looking into these squabbles, I’ve concluded that the best answer is from Doyce Nunis, former editor of the Historical Society’s journal, the Southern California Quarterly. Nunis refers to a 1785 California map, in which Los Angeles appears under the title El Pueblo de la Reyna de los Angeles (“The Town of the Queen of the Angels”). Other variations are favored by historians, some mentioning the Rio de Porciuncula (now the Los Angeles River), some mentioning “Our Lady Queen of the Angels,” etc. – but just minor variations on the name.

Los Angeles was my hometown for about twenty-five years. As a young man with an unmanageable variety of interests, I had difficulty, like many others, of settling on a career. Eventually, since philosophy is tailor-made for those with multiple interests, I entered graduate school for philosophy, and as a Latinist one of my initial research interests was Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy of the angels, as expounded in the Summa Theologiae, the De substantiis separatis, the De spiritualibus creaturis, and other works. This research eventually resulted in my first book, and quite a few articles.

But for a Catholic philosopher considering Mariology, the scholastic theories concerning angels pose some problems, in particular with regard to the common honorific of Mary as “Queen of the Angels.”

Madonna and Child with Two Angels by Vittore Crivelli, 1481 [The Met, NYC]

For one thing, there is the problem of angelic numerosity. Thomas Aquinas and other scholastics debated about how angels, if they were pure spirits, could be numbered and “individuated.” Concrete material distinctions seem to be necessary for counting and separating things. Aquinas proposed that angels are not individualized by matter, but by their form or “species.” Thus, unlike the billions of humans who all belong to one species, every angel is a distinct species – one as different from the other as a rose differs from a tiger and from a human being. And there may be an almost infinite “number” of angelic species!

So when we’re talking about Our Lady as “Queen of the Angels,” we are referring to a human being governing an incalculable magnitude of spiritual beings.

How could a human being, even a saint, know and influence such a multitude? Aquinas solved this issue regarding the similar influence of angels such as Seraphim and Cherubim in the highest “orders,” over angels and archangels, etc. in the lower orders. His solution was that angels, unlike humans, do not have temporally advancing “discursive” knowledge, but simple instantaneous intuitions, so that higher angels influence lower angels through simpler and more universal intellectual cognitions. Thus, as pure spirits, they have mental operations like God, who knows and governs everything through one simple all-encompassing act, numbering the very hairs on our head, and keeping track of each sparrow. (Lk. 12:6-7)

Following the reasoning of Aquinas, regarding the “how” question, we would probably conclude that this Woman, Queen of the Angels, perhaps knows and influences these myriads of angelic hosts in a “simpler and more universal” manner, similar to the way that the “choirs” of angels operate. And – more important to us – Mary, designated as our mother by Jesus on the Cross, and designated by Pope Paul VI at Vatican II as “Mother of the Church” – would have knowledge of, and influence on, each and every one of us in the same simple intuitive fashion.

Still, even granting the unfathomable power of God, how could any saint, even in the context of great saints, possess such greatness and such power?

In Mary’s case, of course, part of the explanation has to be related to her Immaculate Conception. Original sin and the obstacles we pose to the grace of God explain why so few attain sanctity. Just consider what would be the case if there were no such obstacles.

Saint Thomas Aquinas by Carlo Crivelli, 1476 [National Gallery, Washington, DC]

The late Fr. Andrew Greeley, with whom I didn’t always agree, in his book Jesus, makes a memorable point about the generosity of God. He portrays God as a desire-crazed suitor who wants to share as much of himself as possible with everyone – “a God who, for some god-forsaken reason, is crazy in love with you.” Jesus (Lk. 6:38 and Jn. 10:10) says as much about his desire to impart overflowing measures of spiritual life, gifts, and graces.

And, perhaps even more important, we must consider the Christian notion of divinization – which is the “other side of the coin” of Jesus’ Incarnation. As some Patristic commentators have put it, Jesus became man so that we could in effect become gods. This is strongly emphasized in Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches and is called theosis.

In John 10:34-35, Jesus responds to critics of his claim to divinity by citing Psalm 81:

Is it not written in your law: “I said you are gods?” If it calls them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be set aside – can you say that the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world blasphemes because I said, “I am the Son of God?”

St. Augustine comments on this passage: “If men by partaking of the word of God were made gods, much more is the Word of which they partake, God.”

The ultimate divinization of those who hear the Word of God and keep it is also attested to in 1Jn. 3:2, which speaks about eventually being “like God”; and in Acts 17:28, Paul assures the Athenians that the notion of their poets about being “God’s offspring” is correct, and divinity is not something unattainable.

So Mary is not alone. All those who attain to the Kingdom of Heaven will be divinized, with godlike knowledge and powers. Thus the Church is perfectly justified in requiring authenticated miracles before the canonization of saints.

And we should therefore not be surprised that the Queen of Heaven, in response to skeptics, should perform the greatest miracle since the Resurrection at Fatima on October 13, 1917.

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2017/06/10/queen-of-angels/

© 2017 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to:  info@frinstitute.org The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Fr. Amorth: The Role of Mary & Angels Against Evil

Kathleen Beckman

Fr. Gabriel Amorth’s important last book and testimony emphasizes the role of Mary and angels in the defeat of evil. As the Church anticipates the celebration of the one hundred year anniversary of the Fatima apparitions, and in light of Mary’s prophecy at Fatima, Father Amorth provides good food for thought.

Excerpt from An Exorcist Explains the Demonic

Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces

“In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph”: Mary’s prophecy at Fátima reassures us that besides the body-to-body [struggle] with the demon (the exorcism), the earthly anticipation of the eschatological struggle between the Mother of God and the ancient dragon (cf. Rev. 12) also has her attention. Despite rampant sin and despite the man who abandons God, considering him only a useless impediment to his own unrestrained liberty, the tribulations of the Church will have an end. And the finale will be good: God will have the last word on history. For this reason, Mary is always invoked during the exorcism; although, to tell the truth, the old ritual did not include an invocation to her. Adding her to the ceremony is a practice I borrowed from Father Candido, however. It is a necessity, and the current ritual has gotten around this deficiency. During the prayer, the priest repeatedly invokes her intercession and her powerful action. Without her, little is accomplished in the struggle against Satan. It is always God who liberates one from his influence — it is good to keep repeating it—but His ear is especially attuned to the mediation of Mary, the Mother of His Son.

What role does the Virgin have in the liberation of the obsessed? Mary, as the Hail Mary says, is “full of grace.” She is the mediatrix of God’s every grace for all men, particularly for those who suffer much, including those who suffer from spiritual evils. The enmity between Mary and Satan—proclaimed solemnly by God in the first book of Genesis (Gen. 1:3–15) and manifest in the eschatological struggle with the dragon — makes her the number-one enemy of the demon. She will be the one to crush his head at the end of time.

The help of the Virgin, however, goes beyond the exceptional situations of the demoniacs. In man’s every struggle against Satan and sin, it is always she who represents the extraordinary and the irreplaceable. The demon is terrified of her. In order to be very clear, I wish to cite an episode at which I personally assisted many years ago. During an exorcism, Father Candido asked the devil a question: “Why are you more afraid when I invoke Mary than when I implore God Himself?” He responded: “I feel more humiliated being conquered by a simple creature than by God Himself.”

Mary is a creature like us, but, having been elevated to be the Mother of God, she has extraordinary power. Also for this reason I ask the persons who assist me to pray the Rosary. It is the most advisable prayer in that context, prayed individually, not aloud and collectively, as it is often prayed in church before Mass, so as not to disturb the exorcism. I would add that the Rosary, being the prayer most appreciated by our Lady, is an extremely powerful arm against the devil, and I warmly recommend it to anyone suffering from spiritual evils. This prayer has, in fact, a strong power of protection and liberation from evil. One day Sister Lucia, a seer of Fátima, revealed that God has conferred a power so great on the Rosary that there is no evil—personal, family, or social—that cannot be defeated by its recitation with faith.

What, then, can we ask of Mary in the Rosary? There is nothing else to ask of her except for the gift of peace — for the world certainly, but also for ourselves; for the serenity of our heart, so that we may be able to accept our crosses, so that we may know how to recognize the gifts that we receive each day from the good God and thank Him for this. It is also important to pray the Rosary together as a family in order to invoke peace in our homes and in our parochial communities, in workplaces, in nations, and in the world. Wars and the division of souls are unequivocal signs of the presence of the devil, which, not by chance, in Greek means “divider.”

I also recall that on March 25, 1984, St. John Paul II consecrated the world to Mary. It was a very important gesture in an epoch in which communism still represented an explicit threat to Christianity. During an exorcism, I asked an unclean spirit who was persecuting someone why he had so much hatred to- ward John Paul II. He replied: “Because he has ruined our plans.” I imagine that he was referring to the fall of communism. At Fátima, when the Virgin affirmed that her “Immaculate Heart will triumph,” what could it mean if not to trust in the Lord and her maternal help always—particularly before the danger of discouragement that lies in wait for everyone, but, above all, for those suffering from evil spirits, because often waiting for the results can seem interminable. It also means that, with the help of Mary, we must continuously engage ourselves in converting to God, so that we will know how to do His will — that is, to pardon and to love — and so that we may know how to make every event an occasion of sanctification and the realization of God’s plan for us. Mary brings us to Jesus, because initially she allowed the Holy Spirit to touch her intimately, permitting her to generate Jesus in time.

The Help of the Angels 

What role do the angels have? We have already spoken of their choice for or against God in the third chapter. The word angel derives from the Greek angelos and means “messenger of God.” The angels are spiritual creatures, without matter. They are pure forms and have a nature different from that of men, who have a material and spiritual nature together. The angels are subdivided into angelic hierarchies according to the mission that is entrusted to them by God. They cannot reproduce or die: in fact, they have been created directly by God.

At the moment of our birth, Divine Providence assigns each of us a guardian angel, with the specific task of protecting us, assisting us, and interceding for us so that at the end of life we can arrive at our destination, which is paradise.

We have already seen that entire legions of angels have chosen the tragic road of rebellion against God, refusing to obey and to adore Him and, indeed, they tried to substitute themselves for Him. As a consequence of their choice, the devils radically changed their mission: now, in fact, they use their superfine intelligence for the unique objective of destroying men and making them their companions in misfortune. As Revelation tells us, that gigantic war that was fought in the heavens among the angels and the demons has another battle held here on earth: they are in a continuous battle for our lives and our hearts.

From all this, one can affirm that the angels who remained faithful to God have a certain degree of power against ordinary temptations as well as extraordinary spiritual evils. Why? Because they are of the same nature as the devils, and they fight with the same spiritual arms. The angels intercede with God in favor of the one being tempted; for this reason, we exorcists always invoke them during the prayers on the obsessed. Among the angels we give precedence to the three archangels, in particular to St. Michael, the most powerful in the struggle against demons. Incidentally, I am among those who regret that, after Vatican II, the prayer of protection to St. Michael the Archangel, recited after Mass, was eliminated. It seems to me to have created an impoverishment, a void. It is true, however, that one can freely say it privately.

In brief, it is good to invoke the angels often, even apart from their help with extraordinary spiritual evils. I always advise imploring their assistance. Our guardian angels have a special power of intercession with God, which is always the beginning of liberations (from demons). The angels help, they intercede, but they themselves do not have the power to liberate the possessed from the terrible effects of demons.

Mary, Mother of Grace, pray for us. Angels of God, protect us.

http://catholicexchange.com/fr-amorth-role-mary-angels-evil

Editor’s note: An Exorcist Explains the Demonic is available from Sophia Institute Press. 

By Kathleen Beckman

Kathleen Beckman, L.H.S. is President and Co-Founder of the Foundation of Prayer for Priests (www.foundationforpriests.org), a global apostolate of prayer and catechesis for the holiness of priests through spiritual motherhood and fatherhood. An international Catholic evangelist, author, radio host, Ignatian certified retreat director, she assists priests in the Church’s ministry of healing, deliverance and exorcism. She also serves in Pope Leo XIII Institute, Magnificat, and Radio Maria. Often featured on Catholic TV and radio such as EWTN, the Catholic Channel, and Ave Maria, she hosts the weekly program, “Eucharist, Mercy & Saints” which airs internationally on Radio Maria. She and her husband are business owners and have two grown sons. Sophia Institute Press published her two latest books: Praying for Priests: A Mission for the New Evangelization (‘14) and God’s Healing Mercy: Finding Your Path to Forgiveness, Peace & Joy (‘15). Her reversion to the faith in 1991 came through the Eucharist and Mary. In her words, “The Eucharist is the heart of my life”. More at www.kathleenbeckman.com.

In God's Company 2: September 29th Feast of the Archangels Saint Micha...

In God's Company 2: September 29th Feast of the Archangels Saint Micha...: September 29th Feast of Saint Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels The liturgy celebrates the feast of these three archangels who ar..

Our knowledge of the Archangel Raphael comes to us from the book of Tobit. His mission  as wonderful healer and fellow traveller with the youthful Tobias has caused him to be  invoked for journeys and at critical moments in life. Tradition also holds that Raphael is the  angel that stirred the waters at the healing sheep pool in Bethesda. His name means "God has healed".

Medjugorje: Angels over the Vineyards

Medjugorje: Angels over the Vineyards

Photo: Fr. Donald Calloway at the Notre Dame Conference 2004


Angels Over the Vineyards
By Cathy Karem

It was a beautiful fall evening in September, 2005. Father Donald Calloway, the spiritual director for another group from the US, walked into Pansion Nada, where he and his group were staying and where I always stay when coming to Medjugorje. I was sitting at a table having a cup of coffee after awaiting my husband’s phone call from the States.
Fr. Calloway looked at me and said, “Excuse me, could you please come outside with me for a minute?” I said, “Sure, Father.” I didn’t know why or what, but I followed him out the front door to the driveway, which is located right across the street from the vineyards, and to the right of Mount Krizevac. He pointed up into the sky and he said, “ What do you see?” I looked and I gasped, “Oh my gosh, Father. There’s angels!” they were going around in a circle in the sky. It looked like they were playing chase! All of a sudden a huge bolt of lightening and a big thunder boom struck the sky and everyone who had started gathering for this heavenly spectacle gasped with awe.
The angels kept chasing one another in a circular motion and we then noticed inside the big circle of angels was a smaller circle of baby angels chasing one another. After what seemed about 10 minutes or so, another huge bolt of lightening lit up the sky and a huge boom of thunder clapped. That was number two. We all screamed with excitement again! Priests and pilgrims were running out of their rooms and were gathering to see this beautiful heavenly display. Everyone was “ooohing” and “awing” and saying, “Wow! Look at these angels!!!” These precious little heavenly creatures were having a great time playing “Catch me if you can” over the vineyards.
Now, after what seemed to be another 10 minutes had gone by, the third and biggest bolt of lightening struck. It seemed to cover the entire sky. You could see the whole village of Bikavici. The thunder bolt was so loud it seemed to shake the earth!
Everyone was so excited! And with that, the angels were gone! The sky went black and everybody was silent. You could have heard a pin drop. It seemed like the heavens opened up and they were called back to the Heavenly Court.
Why? How??? I kept asking myself. I remembered that Ivan had called us to the Blue Cross for a message and apparition of the Blessed Mother this night and I couldn’t go on this particular evening because I had to wait for my husband’s phone call from the States. As a rule, I would never have missed Her call to the Blue Cross, but I knew, after having missed my husband’s call the previous night, that our Blessed Mother would want me to be considerate and be there this time for my husband’s phone call. When I go to Medjugorje I usually stay a month, so I knew that in all probability that the Blessed Mother would call us again to the Blue Cross, and I would go then.
Boy am I glad that I listened to my heart and that I had awaited his phone call !
Our Blessed Mother has called me to come to Medjugorje many times, and I have been very blessed and privileged to have been able to answer Her call. I have seen the Miracle of the Sun many times, my rosaries have turned gold, and many other beautiful miracles have happened, but never in all my days had I seen a visual miracle of heavenly creatures like these angels!
Our Blessed Mother gives us so many blessings and miracles from Her Son Jesus, but they don’t always hit us like streaks of lightening and bolts of thunder. But this was definitely a gift and all I can say is that miracles do
happen and they come in many shapes and forms, but we must open our hearts to receive them.
This beautiful place called Medjugorje is truly a precious and indescribable gift to the world. How God loves us so much to have sent His Heavenly Queen, our Heavenly Mother all these years to help us through our lives. This place called Medjugorje has truly marked me and millions of other people. Mary’s presence is there! And you can feel Her wrap Her loving arms around you.
I must add something very important to this story… THANK YOU, Blessed Mother and Jesus for loving me!
Editor’s note: Cathy is from Louisville, Kentucky.
Source of this article....http://www.spiritofmedjugorje.org/july2006.htm