Guardian angel question

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brendenseth

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We were at a friends house and our friend told us she thinks you shouldn’t name your guardian angel. My mother told me she named hers and that I can name mine too. I just wondered if anyone else has done this? My friend told me that God has already given them a name and it’s disrespectful to give them one over God. This makes the most sense to me but I’m still not sure. Thank you.
 
The Congregation for Divine Worship (in other words, the Vatican) says we are not to name angels except for the angels whose names are revealed by Scripture.
  1. Popular devotion to the Holy Angels, which is legitimate and good, can, however, also give rise to possible deviations:
    …
  • 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. source]
 
(Reepicheep goes to the source and reads it)

…Hmm. I was taught, a long time ago, that asking one’s Guardian Angel for a name was an acceptable pious devotion.

It appears those who taught me were mistaken on this point.

By the way, the relevant bit is about halfway down the page, article 217 in the section titled “Holy Angels”.
 
It’s best just to call them “Guardian Angel” or “dear Guardian Angel.” This cannot fail to maintain their dignity and identity.

How exciting will be the day when, hopefully, we are with them in Heaven!
 
brendenseth said:
We were at a friends house and our friend told us she thinks you shouldn’t name your guardian angel. My mother told me she named hers and that I can name mine too. I just wondered if anyone else has done this? My friend told me that God has already given them a name and it’s disrespectful to give them one over God. This makes the most sense to me but I’m still not sure. Thank you.
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It is correct to obey the Church. Some people meant well but were mistaken.

I always address the angel appointed to me as “guardian angel”.
 
Dorothy said:
It is correct to obey the Church. Some people meant well but were mistaken.

I always address the angel appointed to me as “guardian angel”.
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I agree. I use the term ‘dear guardian angel’.

paduard
 
I might be mistaken, but isnt there a list of all the angels names?

I know there is a list for all the demons names, seems like if those names were known, the names of heavenly angels would also be known.
 
mikekle said:
I might be mistaken, but isnt there a list of all the angels names?

I know there is a list for all the demons names, seems like if those names were known, the names of heavenly angels would also be known.
Click to expand...
We only know the names of 3 archangels, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael. I think the Islam tradition has several more. Peter Kreeft has an excellent youtube video about angels and demons where he talks about the practice of naming your guardian angel. He says it would be like trying to make your angel a pet, because names have power. You have authority over your children and you name them, and you have authority over your pets and you name them. But you have no authority over your angel so it would be presumptuous to name him/her [of course they have no gender].

On the other hand, the first thing exorcists do is to find out the name of the demon they’re dealing with because then they have authority over it.
 
mikekle said:
I might be mistaken, but isnt there a list of all the angels names?

I know there is a list for all the demons names, seems like if those names were known, the names of heavenly angels would also be known.
Click to expand...
No they are not. Apart from the 3 manifestly known names, some extra names for the Archangels are purported to be known, but these are NOT listed in the Scriptures (Old and New Testaments) but rather on apocrypha texts.

And to state that we could know the names of all the Angels in Heaven is really really wild assertion. One of GOD’s names is The Lord of Hosts. If there are literally Billions of humans right now on Earth and we KNOW that each one has an appointed Guardian Angel here on earth, and we know that there are at least seven layers or choirs of Angels in Heaven, “Hosts” must be a really big number indeed.

Therefore I submit that it is impossible for us to “know” all their names.

Also, as others have pointed out, we must NOT give a name to our Guardian Angel.
He is NOT a pet, he is a Spirit with an incalculable higher intelligence that our own, we next to them, have the knowledge of maggots. How dare we insult them like that, GOD, named each Angel and only HE, can know each and every one of them.
We sin of presumption, when we attempt to name any Angel, outside those that have manifested theirs.

…
 
I remember in 6th grade, our Deacon told us that Padre Pio named his angel Michael, out of love for St. Michael. But reading up on things now, it looks like he was mistaken-- although he had a strong devotion to St. Michael, he called his guardian angel Angiolillo, “Angel of Mine.”

So, it looks like none of the great saints who were familiar with their guardian angels-- St. Pio, St. Gemma, etc-- ever tried to name them. I think it’s a strong argument that we can name things lower than us in the hierarchy-- ie, Adam’s naming of the animals-- but it’s presumptuous to name things higher than us-- ie, the angels.
 
brendenseth said:
We were at a friends house and our friend told us she thinks you shouldn’t name your guardian angel. My mother told me she named hers and that I can name mine too. I just wondered if anyone else has done this? My friend told me that God has already given them a name and it’s disrespectful to give them one over God. This makes the most sense to me but I’m still not sure. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Out of concern for treating them as spiritual pets and not the protectors, sent by God, that they are, the Church strongly discourages us from naming out Guardian Angels.
 
Never heard of people naming their guardian angel, ever, until I started
reading these forums.
 
seagal said:
We only know the names of 3 archangels, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael. I think the Islam tradition has several more. Peter Kreeft has an excellent youtube video about angels and demons where he talks about the practice of naming your guardian angel. He says it would be like trying to make your angel a pet, because names have power. You have authority over your children and you name them, and you have authority over your pets and you name them. But you have no authority over your angel so it would be presumptuous to name him/her [of course they have no gender].

On the other hand, the first thing exorcists do is to find out the name of the demon they’re dealing with because then they have authority over it.
Click to expand...
Very informative post…thank you!
 
midori said:
So, it looks like none of the great saints who were familiar with their guardian angels-- St. Pio, St. Gemma, etc-- ever tried to name them. I think it’s a strong argument that we can name things lower than us in the hierarchy-- ie, Adam’s naming of the animals-- but it’s presumptuous to name things higher than us-- ie, the angels.
Click to expand...
yes 👍
 
mikekle said:
I might be mistaken, but isnt there a list of all the angels names?

I know there is a list for all the demons names, seems like if those names were known, the names of heavenly angels would also be known.
Click to expand...
I use Angel of God
 
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