Angels-GUARDIAN ANGELS

Man’s concept of a spirit guardian is probably as old as the human
race. In ancient Mesopotamia people believed they had personal gods called massar sulmi (“the guardian of man’s welfare”). Zoroastrians
called these protective spirits fravashis. Greeks believed a familiar spirit
called a daemon was assigned to each person at birth and guided that
person through life. The Japanese also had a guiding spirit, a kami, and
pre-Christian Romans believed each man had a guardian genius and
each woman a juno.
In Teutonic tradition, a spirit guide is assigned to every individual
at birth and remains with their charge throughout his or her life. An
interesting bit of folklore is held by the Armenians who claim that an
infant’s guardian angel trims the baby’s nails and brings a smile to its
lips when they play together. The spirit returns to heaven when the
child is older.
Early Christian theologian Origen (ca. A.D. 235) held the view
that each person had a good angel to guide him and an evil one to
tempt him throughout life. This view was also popular in Jewish tradition
and in Roman literature.
Even though influential sixth-century theologians Pseudo-
Dionysius and Pope Gregory the Great never mentioned personal
guardian angels in their writings on angelology, belief in such
guardians was widespread during the Middle Ages. Thirteenth-century
religious philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas taught that the individual
has a guardian angel close at hand throughout life. Christian Puritan
writer Increase Mather (1639–1723), in Angelographia states,
“Angels both good and bad have a greater influence on this world
than men are generally aware of. We ought to admire the grace of God
toward us sinful creatures in that He hath appointed His holy angels
to guard us against mischiefs of wicked spirits who are always intending
our hurt both to our bodies and to our souls.”
Catholic Teachings
It is not part of the dogma of the Catholic Church, but Catholics
are taught that each person has a guardian angel who protects and
watches over him or her. As children, Catholics learn this prayer:
“Angel of God who are my guardian, enlighten, watch over, support
and rule me, who was entrusted to you by the heavenly piety. Amen.”
For her book Angels: The Role of Celestial Guardians and Beings of
Light, Paola Giovetti interviewed Father Eugenio Ferrarotti of Genoa,
who says he has made contact with his guardian angel through automatic
writing. When asked whether the existence of guardian angels is
the official teaching of the church, Fr. Ferrarotti answered, “Of course,
it’s an element of faith. There are about three hundred mentions of
angels in the Scriptures, and Jesus himself speaks of them. Therefore, to remain silent today on the presence of angels amounts to belittling
slightly the word of the Lord, censuring it and interpreting it incorrectly.
Devotion to our guardian angels should come immediately after that
for the Holy Trinity, Jesus, and the Madonna.” Fr. Ferrarotti also claims
angels are a gift from God, given at the moment the soul issues from
God and remaining at the person’s side until after death. “Yes, there are
angels all around us,” he affirms; “they enlighten us, protect, rule, and
defend us on our return journey to the Heavenly Father.”
The Roman Catholic Church celebrates a feast day to the
guardian angels on October 2. Catholicism holds that every country,
city, town, village, parish, and family has its own guardian angel, as do
altars, churches, dioceses, and religious institutions.
According to the Catholic publication Saint Michael and the
Angels, the personal guardian angels’ ministry consists of warding off
dangers to body and soul; preventing Satan’s suggesting evil thoughts,
and removing occasions of sin; enlightening and instructing the
charge and fostering holy thoughts and pious desires; offering the person’s
prayers to God and praying for him or her; correcting the charge
if he or she sins; and helping the individual in the agony of death and
conducting the soul to heaven or to purgatory.
Guardian Angels in the Bible
The story of the archangel Raphael as he guides the youth Tobias
on his dangerous journey in the apocryphal Book of Tobit sets the
stage for biblical guardian angels. Among biblical references to
guardian angels is Heb. 1:14, where St. Paul says, “Are they all not
ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs
of salvation?” Dr. Billy Graham, Christian evangelist, cites in his
book Angels: God’s Secret Agents the classic example of an angel protector
found in Acts 12:5–11. Peter is in prison awaiting execution
because of his belief in the Gospel and the works of God. James, the
brother of John, has already fallen victim to the executioner’s axe. As
Peter sleeps, an angel appears, enters the prison cell, and wakes Peter,
telling him to prepare to escape. A light shines in the cell, Peter’s
chains fall off, he dresses and follows the angel outside, where the
gates of the city open of their own accord and let them pass.
Ps. 91:11–12 speaks of guardian angels: “For he shall give his
angels charge over thee, to keep thee and all thy ways. They shall
bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against the
stone.” The angels are said to take special care of children. Jesus says
in Matt. 18:10, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little
ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold
the face of my Father.”
Churches, cities, and nations are also said
to have guardian angels. In the Book of Revelation
seven angels are assigned to minister to the
seven churches, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos,
Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea
during the final days before the second coming
of Christ.
On the Belief in Guardian Angels
Writer Michael Grosso, in the book Angels
and Mortals: Their Co-Creative Power, writes
that the belief in and reverence of guardian
angels is “the collective outgrowth of thousands
of years of unconscious psycho-mythical evolution.”
He cites biblical examples of the beginnings
of this belief, such as in Exod. 23:20,
when god tells Moses, “I myself will send an
angel before you to guard you as you go and to
bring you to the place that I have prepared.
Give him reverence and listen to all that he
says.” According to Grosso the guardian angel
is an imago dei—“an image or form of divine
power”—and that Christ is the exclusive imago
dei. Speaking of angelic cult in the Catholic
Church, Grosso writes, “Popular movements that grow outside or parallel
to the dogmas of the Church . . . are likely to reflect some deep
psychic need.” He theorizes that the cult of the guardian angel, like
the cult of saints and of the Virgin Mary, “may be seen as an attempt
to overcome the remoteness and impersonality of God,” to “shrink out
distance from deity.”
Writing about the last stage of the Opus Sanctorum Angelorum
(the Work of the Holy Angels, a current movement in the Catholic
Church that is devoted to angels), Grosso says, “all human beings,
saints or sinners, Christians or pagans, enjoy the service of a guardian
angel. The concept, in short, is archetypal: it applies to the psyche
universally. The guardian angel is portrayed as existing ‘face to face’
with God. . . . In short, there is in every human being an unconscious
inlet to the highest creative energies of the spirit.”
Then Grosso takes another look—at the view of the philosopher
Vico, called the philosopher of the imagination. “In a Vichian vein,”
Grosso writes, “we can say that angels exist insofar as we imaginally
co-create them. . . . Angels are true to the extent that we make them
true. That is our premise. It contrasts sharply with the traditional reli-
gion and with modern science.” Grosso says that people in a time
when the world is saturated with science, are hungry for fresh contact
with renewing spirits, thus the popularity of archetypes (inherited
ideas common to a race and existing in the subconscious) in the forms
of psychic channeling, UFO contacts, near-death experiences, apparitions
of Mary, and guardian angels. In these new times of return to the
primal imagination, writes Grosso, “the gods and goddesses, the
demons and fairies, the griffins and guardian angels we have trampled
under the feet of scientific rationalism are returning with a
vengeance.” But he does not discount this experience of our collective
psyche. Rather he asserts, “As this happens, opportunities for transforming
ourselves in the image of our divinely human potentials—
opportunities for soul-making—will multiply, with the help of our
guardian angels.”
How Angels Guard and Guide
While guardian angels can help humans even if they don’t ask, it
is best if the person does ask for help, says contemporary author Linda
Georgian in her book Your Guardian Angels. She maintains that a person
should think about the angels daily to communicate with them,
and become aware of instinct and intuition since these gentle nudgings
could be angels talking.
Angels will do all they can to help the humans in their care, but
they cannot act against man’s free will, according to angel lore. If a person
wants angelic help, he will also have to strive to do what is right,
including taking all possible care to be safe in difficult circumstances.
Betty Malz, in her book Angels Watching over Me, uses the example of a
daredevil pilot who is killed in an accident to illustrate that people
can, by choosing to take too many chances, deliberately move themselves
out of the “safety zone,” in which angels will protect them.
Sophy Burnham, in A Book of Angels considers the difficult question:
If an angel can save one person, why not a troop of angels to save
our world? “Why did spiritual beings not sweep over us to save mothers
in Vietnam or Palestine from bombs and napalm burns, or babies from
dying of disease? Why do not angels lift up planes shot down in war and
hold them in their winged hands as a mother would in setting her baby
in a crib?” Burnham asks. She answers, “Blood splatters on our earth.
Blood fertilizes it. Blood of mankind shed by man. Is that why angels
cannot interfere? . . . Are angels helpless against the rage of man?”
An account in Giovetti’s book seems to bear out Burnham’s conclusion.
In peaceful settings angels perhaps are trying to save our
world. Giovetti writes of the extraordinary events at Findhorn, on the
coast of Scotland, where spirit devas led two women, a man, and three children to plant and grow fruits and vegetables of unheard-of variety
and size in a cold, desolate spot that had only pebbly sand for soil.
These spirit voices instructed Dorothy Maclean and Eileen Caddy in
the harmonious and natural way to fertilize the earth and sow seed to
care for and nourish each variety of grass, greens, and vegetables, and
when and how to gather them. Begun as a small kitchen seed-plot, the
“Findhorn phenomenon” eventually brought visitors from all over the
world to see the magnificent garden cultivated by Maclean and the
Caddy family. Some stayed to help and a community grew up at Findhorn.
Today it is a school not only of gardening, but of life, where lectures
and courses are given, showing people that it is possible to live
healthy lives in harmony with nature and humanity and in tune with
the spiritual dimension.
Another example in Giovetti’s book is that of a young woman
named Elisa, who lives in Rome. Elisa says she has always felt angels
close to her and has seen them: “They are tall, luminous, made of pure
light and sexless,” she says, and they describe themselves as “beings of
light, vibrating in the Divine Energy, pure and uncontaminated by
thought.” Since 1987 these beings have spoken to Elisa about the
future of the human race urging her to arouse people’s consciousness
and get them to love, pray, and think positively so that the angels can
help them to realize the divine plan for a harmonious earth.
Is It Really From the Angels?
Hundreds of people claim to receive not only protection but daily
guidance from angels through dreams, visions, or voices. Eileen Elias
Freeman, editor of the AngelWatch Newsletter and author of Touched
by Angels: True Cases of Close Encounters of the Celestial Kind (1993),
lists some ways by which a person can tell whether a message actually
comes from the angels. She says angelic messages are always loving,
positive, and clear, even though they may be sobering. They do not
leave the receiver with feelings of anxiety or unnamed fears, but with
confidence and knowing from within that the message is right and
true. Truly angelic messages, says Freeman, come only from God. If
carrying out the message brings good in the life of the receiver and
those around him, it came from the angels, and an angelic encounter
will always leave the person changed for the better. Any being that
can be summoned at will, with or without ritual, she says, is not an
angel, for God alone sends the angels when the time is right.