Guardian Angels

Growing up, guardian angels just seemed like a childhood fairy tale.  It was a cute story to bring comfort, and a bit of discipline, to young children.  In my household, angels weren't really spoken of too much, especially not personal guardian angels.  We believed in angels and that angels could be sent by God to intervene in our lives, but it was still met with a level of skepticism.

Coming out of this difficult period where I'd pretty much given up on all but very basic Christian identity, I felt very empty and confused.  Pretty much all I had left was the Apostle's Creed, and even that was just recited with a feeling of emptiness.  It was all I had left to hold on to of my Christian faith.  

Once the Christmas music had rewarmed my heart of hearts, I decided I need to get back to basics and relearn my faith.  I had the Creed.  What explains the Creed well?  The Baltimore Catechism!  I pulled it off my shelf and started to read.  

Chapter 4 starts with St. Matthew 18:10 ".....their angels in heaven....."  Wait.  What?  I grabbed my Protestant Bible and looked up the verse.  Surely this was just a weird Catholic translation to support their cute guardian angel theology.   Nope.  There it was plain as day.  Jesus was talking about the children and their angels; their personal angels who behold the face of God.  

When I was pursuing Catholicism the first time, I didn't really believe in Guardian Angels.  This was the first time I was really hit in the face with the fact that we do, indeed have Guardian Angels.  So, I grabbed the Catechism of the Catholic Church and read section 336 on Guardian Angels.  Then, I opened up the index in my KJV Bible and explored verses on angels.  I found this gem:  1 Peter 1:12, where angels are concerned about us humans.  

I can't escape it.  There it is in black and white not only in the Catholic Church, but in my Protestant Bibles.  

This is sometime I really appreciate about Catholicism.  The spiritual realm is available to us, to a degree.  Evangelicalism is very earth-bound.  We have Jesus, and for Charismatics, the Holy Spirit.  And while I completely believe in the Holy Spirit and his indwelling in us, I believe that many evangelicals rely on feelings and emotions as their "holy spirit" rather than the true Holy Spirit.  Catholics believe He is ever-present in us, whereas Evangelical Charismatics seem to believe that we have coax the Holy Spirit, conjure Him up, so to speak.  

(As an aside, I remember singing songs in my Assembly of God church asking the Holy Spirit to come, welcoming Him into the church.  It suddenly dawned on me that we are the ones walking into His house.  Church isn't our house that we invite the Holy Spirit into.  Why do we sing songs like that?)

Evangelicals tend to shun anything that "gets in the way of Jesus."  But, Catholicism welcomes all the gifts that Jesus has to give us:  the angels, the saints, Mary!  

When I close my eyes and picture my evangelical walk with Jesus, I see darkness and within the darkness I see the light of Jesus, but that light is concentrated just on Jesus.  It illuminates little to nothing else.  When I close my eyes and think of Catholicism, it is all light, central on Jesus, but revealing all His glory and all who give Him glory.  Perhaps not so ironically, that is why Catholic churches tend to be feasts for the eyes, but more and more evangelical churches are plunging their auditoriums (I hesitate to even call them sanctuaries) into darkness and utilizing special lighting techniques to pinpoint whomever is on stage.  

Now that I've gone off on a slight tangent, I conclude with happily believing I have a guardian angel! 

Time to get acquainted.

PS....I sometimes hear from evangelicals that "angels don't look like that," concerning the often Catholic use of beautiful human-like depictions of angels.  Of course they don't look like that.  The images offered us in the Bible are quite frightening and rather beyond our complete comprehension.  Angels are depicted in human-like form for our benefit (and the fact that they can appear in human-like form.  That is not beyond God to do for us).