Guardian Angels?

[Prof_K]

My angel could just as easily be a her instead of a him.

Since angels do not reproduce, but are a direct creation of God the Father, as Kreeft argues, they have no gender. However, when they assume human form, they may appear to have gender. Thus while referring to one as a male or female is commonplace, and not problematic, it is not accurate. Likely you were not serious, but I at least found the point interesting.

 

[CarolinNC]

Yes, I have a guardian angel that I call “Guardian Dear”. Being disabled I can often get into situations where I need help getting up, or something, and there is no one around to help, so I ask my Guardian Dear to help and they (I hate to say “it”) always do. I never feel alone either. I feel very blessed.

 

[Prof_K]

To be brutally frank…
it is an extremely well documented medical phenomenon that human organs are not merely interchangeable plumbing fixtures, but are indeed very heavily embued with the physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic energy of their human beings, and that particularly in the case of the heart, some of the preferences/habits/consciousness/body memory of the donor can indeed be transferred along with the organ to its recipient.

It is also an extremely well documented medical phenomenon that if the body/mind/spirit of the transplant recipient rejects that physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic energy that comes with that transplant organ, the recipient’s life will be endangered. They have to “get along” with one another or there is life-endangering physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic rejection.

It is medically irresponsible, ignorant, and arrogant to judge this individual perjoratively as some sort of victim of “new age” “secular” and “*off *thinking”, project your own personal and ignorant thoughts and feelings onto this situation (“your assigned angel probably feels a bit left out”) and command this individual to start pep talking with him instead.

The assigned angels know perfectly well what is going on when a human soul stands with the angels to help another human soul complete its lessons on earth and connect its consciousness to God… do YOU? Apparently not.

Interesting point, but I have to agree with Newstheman. Angels, according to Catholic teaching, are beings of pure spirit, bodiless in the sense that we have bodies. Humans are a mingling of body and spirit. Thus while we may become more angelic, human spirits cannot become angels, nor can animals. That is not to say you don’t have a point, but the phenomenon of organ acceptance or rejection may be purely biochemical and have little to do with the spiritual nature of the organs. Humans can become more angelic, or more god-like for that matter, but they no more become angels than they become gods. Thus if the OP wishes to honor her donor as angelic, that is fine, but a more accurate moniker might be to see them as a literal patron saint. Either way it is right and good to feel gratefulness.

 

[Dorothy]

To be brutally frank…
it is an extremely well documented medical phenomenon that human organs are not merely interchangeable plumbing fixtures, but are indeed very heavily embued with the physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic energy of their human beings, and that particularly in the case of the heart, some of the preferences/habits/consciousness/body memory of the donor can indeed be transferred along with the organ to its recipient.

It is also an extremely well documented medical phenomenon that if the body/mind/spirit of the transplant recipient rejects that physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic energy that comes with that transplant organ, the recipient’s life will be endangered. They have to “get along” with one another or there is life-endangering physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic rejection.

It is medically irresponsible, ignorant, and arrogant to judge this individual perjoratively as some sort of victim of “new age” “secular” and “*off *thinking”, project your own personal and ignorant thoughts and feelings onto this situation (“your assigned angel probably feels a bit left out”) and command this individual to start pep talking with the assigned angel instead.

The assigned angels know perfectly well what is going on when a human soul stands with the angels to help another human soul complete its lessons on earth and connect its consciousness to God… do YOU? Apparently not.

That was quite harsh of you. The poster meant no harm and was trying to clarify the difference between an angel and a human.

 

[Rascalking]

To be brutally frank…
it is an extremely well documented medical phenomenon that human organs are not merely interchangeable plumbing fixtures, but are indeed very heavily embued with the physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic energy of their human beings, and that particularly in the case of the heart, some of the preferences/habits/consciousness/body memory of the donor can indeed be transferred along with the organ to its recipient.

It is also an extremely well documented medical phenomenon that if the body/mind/spirit of the transplant recipient rejects that physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic energy that comes with that transplant organ, the recipient’s life will be endangered. They have to “get along” with one another or there is life-endangering physical, biochemical, and electromagnetic rejection.

It is medically irresponsible, ignorant, and arrogant to judge this individual perjoratively as some sort of victim of “new age” “secular” and “*off *thinking”, project your own personal and ignorant thoughts and feelings onto this situation (“your assigned angel probably feels a bit left out”) and command this individual to start pep talking with the assigned angel instead.

The assigned angels know perfectly well what is going on when a human soul stands with the angels to help another human soul complete its lessons on earth and connect its consciousness to God… do YOU? Apparently not.

Well, this was out of line and a bit rude.

 

[former_Catholic]

A transplant survivor of 14 years refers to the soul of the deceased child organ donor as “AngelRachel” and regards her tenderly as a personal guardian angel…. someone who is always with the transplant survivor in spirit, helping the transplant survivor live to complete lessons on earth, someone of whom the survivor has a personal sense of consciousness and confers with when going for the mandatory annual screening to determine how well the body is doing getting along with the transplanted organs.

The poster had the audacity to accuse this transplant survivor of “off” thinking.
The poster had the audacity to claim that someone who has died can NEVER become an angel, in spite of the fact that Christ Himself claimed that the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage as they do indeed *become like the angels. *

The poster apparently felt that the incredibly narrow distinction between *becoming like an angel *and being an angel is such a vitally important point that the poster felt personally qualified and personally entitled to judge that “it is not right” for the transplant survivor to treat the survivor’s consciousness of the spirit of the deceased child as any sort of angel whatsoever and feels entitled to be “brutally frank” ….in accusing the transplant survivor of evidencing new-age-ism and secularism……
and commanding the transplant survivor to start “pep talking” with his own concept of the survivor’s assigned guardian angel INSTEAD of doing what the transplant survivor has been doing, irregardless of the fact that doing what the transplant survivor has been doing has apparently kept this transplant survivor alive and healthy for the past 14 years.

Please explain how the poster’s reprehensible behavior toward the transplant survivor authentically represents Catholicism’s respect for the human dignity of the transplant survivor.

 

[NewsTheMan]

former Catholic,

Where do you get off huh! Bitter that you aren’t Catholic anymore

I think my post was charitable and, beyond that, correct.

And so you know.

It is off thinking. And it is new age thinking. This is for you, not for the nice person whom I originally posted for.

I seem to have touched a nerve, and I don’t understand why. You are building the issue up, creating straw men and using all sorts of dodgy rhetoric.

I am not being audacious, or anything like that. Here is a fact for you:

HUMAN BEINGS CAN NEVER BECOME ANGELS.

That would be like saying oh gee, when I die I hope I turn into a dolphin in heaven cos they are my favourite animal. Not happening.

Angels and Humans are seperate and different beings.

And yes, it is ‘off’ to regard the dead as angels. One hundred percent off. I didn’t say it was evil or wrong. I just said it wasn’t correct.

And to go to your third paragraph, which is full of assumptions and bad arguing.

Becoming like an angel and being an angel. Really? You don’t see the only thing that seperates those two statements is time? “Becoming”? You are wrong. We are never in the process of becoming like an angel, because we can never be an angel. And nor do we suddenly start feeling more powerful in heaven and go “WOW I feel like Gabriel now AWESOME!”.

I never accused anyone of secularism or new age-ism. I merely stated that that kind of thinking leads to those things, or is an off-shoot of those practises. I didn’t say “NEW AGER ALERT”. She is Catholic, how can she be anything but Catholic?

As for commanding her to pep talk her guardian angel. Really? I commanded her? As Moses did to part the Red Sea? No my friend. Come off it.

And then, in your last few sentences you claim that the transplant survivor has been kept alive by praying to her donor. No no my friend, again, wrong. This donor has not kept anybody alive. Only God can do those things. It might be through the intercession of the donor, but nothing else. Anyway, it is wrong to speculate where this donor might be. He/She might be in purgatory, or in heaven. And it is wrong to treat the donor as an angel. Not evil, just wrong.

If I was being “reprehensible” towards the survivor, I do apologise. But I stated that I was trying to be charitable, and I believe I was. You on the other hand, not so much.

Here is a link for you, read it an absorb it: ibelieveinangels.com/Questions-About-Angels/do-humans-become-angels-when-they-die.html

And now to your first post, and content of your last one.

You seem yourself to be confusing new age things with epiphenominal things and supernatural occurances. You seem to be not concerned with the human angel distinction but that when you get someone elses organs we automatically connect with them and are connected with their consciousness and can imbibe their memories etc etc.

Boy oh boy, you are wrong. Show me the medical proof that you are correct. As a philosophymajor specialising in mind body theories I KNOW you are not correct, but maybe some real medical evidence can make me think more about it.

Transplants can never all of a sudden connect you to another person. Any more than if you eat a KFC bucket you suddenly feel the need to cluck and eat seed.
Now, I am not a pure naturalist and there is supernatural that over and above the natural because this is what God represents. However, the things you talk about are to my mind incredibly strange and unfounded.

How the body gets along with organs is purely physical. It isn’t supernatural. And if it cannot be entirely explained by science, yes God might have a hand, but that isn’t anything to do with the connecting of two consciousness’ and the spirits recognition of each other or whatever. That is New Age thinking to the extreme!

Now, if I wasn’t writing exams I might have made my post better and totally annhilated your position and you’re rude treatment of my post. But alas, the books call.

 

[former_Catholic]

The facts are as follows:

A transplant survivor pep TALKS to the spirit of the deceased child organ donor whom the survivor regards as a personal guardian angel and personally feels some manner of consciousness of and connectedness to the spirit of the deceased child.
The transplant survivor has successfully survived doing this for 14 years.

You are not a physician.
You are not a licensed psychologist.
You are not a priest.
You are not the individual’s spiritual advisor.
You have no personal knowledge of the transplant survivor.
You have no personal expertise nor license to counsel transplant survivors.
You are a student majoring in philosophy.
You are COMPLETELY UNQUALIFIED to tell this individual that what this individual is doing is INCORRECT and to command this individual to do something different, as you have indeed done:

“And your assigned angel probably feels a bit left out so start pep talking with him instead”

I regard your arrogance and your behavior as reprehensible.

 

[NewsTheMan]

The facts are as follows:

The survivor regarded the deceased donor as a guardian angel. Nothing more, nothing less. At least, that is what I got from her post.

Thus, in good charity I told her what the teaching is. Her donor is not an angel. That doesn’t stop her from speaking to the donor, as in, prayer for intercession. But regarding the donor as a guardian angel is wrong and a confused thought.

Furthermore, you have attempted to show that the survivor feels consciousness and connectedness with the donor. Not in any of the posts does she ever give off that impression; which is a New Age babble talk if you ask me.

You then went on to misinterpret my post, the survivors post, and then gave your own consultation about what is going on and how rude and arrogant I am. So thus it remains:

You are not a physician.
You are not a licensed psychologist.
You are not a priest.
You are not the individual’s spiritual advisor.
You have no personal knowledge of the transplant survivor.
You have no personal expertise nor license to counsel transplant survivors.

And yet you make a whole host of claims in your postings.

You then private mail me about the statistics of survivors of transplants, as if it qualifies your point. This showed a complete lack of understanding of what statistics are, and how to intepret them.

If the survival rate is 28% or whatever… that means people DO survive. You cannot add anything on top of that. People often make this mistake. If she survives - it is NOTHING out of the ordinary! The odds are against her, but there can only be 2 outcomes and she survived. You do not need to invoke psuedo-science and some quasi-psuedo mind body identity theories to tell us why she is alive and then go on to say its all due to the donor.

Furthermore, I am not unqualified to tell her that praying to a deceased human being AS IF that human being was her guardian angel is incorrect. Because - listen carefully - that is incorrect. Regarding a deceased human being as an angel, and specifically her own guardian angel is incorrect. I do not need qualifications to say that.

And you keep insisting that I commanded her to speak to her own guardian angel. I didn’t command her. I merely said in a good light-hearted way that she should speak to her own guardian angel is she feels the need to get that kind of protection. After all it is the protection and guidance from an angel that she is seeking - so why not go to your own angel. I didn’t say anything out of the ordinary.

I regard your insights and motivations as questionnable, but I pray you come back to the Catholic faith one day anyway

 

[Kimothy80]

Me and my big mouth.

 

[jjtc]

Me and my big mouth.

Thanks, I needed that after reading some of these responses…

 

[NewsTheMan]

Me and my big mouth.

 

[NewsTheMan]

Me and my big mouth.

Not at ALL! No! I think the issue might actually be me and my big mouth

I’m sorry, it really was never meant to turn into this whole thing, I just thought it was okay of me to point you in the right direction/share my opinion. Not in a high-horse kind of way or not to say you know nothing about angels or your own experience!

 

[former_Catholic]

NewsTheMan feels that he is pointing you in the right direction by saying that a human can never be an angel but…so what?
Angels can and do take human form if they so choose…
anything from strangers on Biblical streets… to that unknown never-seen-before janitor down at the hospital who told the grieving mother of the little boy between life and death her son would be ok then was never seen again…(her son survived)…
to an 11 year old child who offers supportive personal connection to life
Angels are spiritual beings who help people connect to the love of God.

Discussing “mystical” experiences is prohibited on this site, but my experience can’t possibly be that as it involves drinking and swearing…

I lived in a high rise building in college. I hadn’t finished the last lab assignment and gave up studying for the final at 1:00 a.m., concluding that without that last lab in I’d never pass unless I somehow aced the final. Oh well.

I sleep like a rock. If a bomb went off; I’d sleep through that too. I was sound asleep and there was this huge woosh and a flump that was like somebody had picked up the end of my bed 3 feet and dropped it and knocked me half into a sitting position to wake me up…
what the…? My room was dark and empty and still… and yet there was this awful piteous screaming and crying…
It was 3:00 a.m. I pulled on jeans and a t shirt and walked out into the hall… what was that? where was it coming from? It wasn’t out in the hall… it was coming from… where?
I locked my apartment and went this direction… the sound got softer…
that direction… the sound got louder…up the stairs… this direction… no that direction… and up the stairs… and up… and up… and up…
I finally ended up on the very top floor and at the very far other end of the building…the awful piteous screaming and crying and wailing was loud and everywhere… but it was still overhead… directly overhead…and there were no more stairs in the building. I was on the highest floor. And yet the noise came from… overhead.

I turned around…and there was a strange service door with a jimmied lock jarred slightly open just a crack… and the sound was coming from there… from a very narrow dark stairway that led up…to the roof.
I hate heights. I hate rooves. The noise vanished with a big woosh of wind on the stairs…that got me up those creepy stairs… just as it had started with the big woosh of wind that had pretty much thrown me out of bed. There was a guy sitting on the very edge of the roof, dangling his legs over the edge, drinking a fifth of Jack Daniels.

Did I mention I hate heights? I walked over to the edge and confronted him…
“WIll you PLEASE keep it down up here?! I was sound asleep and you woke me up with your @#$@ noise! I have got a final in 6 hours, give me a break!”
“What noise?”
“You’ve been screaming and crying in pain up here so @#$@ loud that you woke me up from a sound sleep… I followed the noise all the way up here to tell you to hold it down!”
“You followed… the noise? All the way up here to the roof? So where did you come from?”
“Second floor, far end of the building…”
“And you hiked from the second floor at the other end of the building…all the way up here?”
“Yeah. I was sound asleep and you woke me up with your noise! and so I followed the noise!”
“Lady, I haven’t made a sound all night.” he waved the bottle at me “Care for a drink? It’s just me and Jack (Daniels) out here… we started out together and we’re going to finish it all off together tonight…”
“No thanks.” His bottle was nearly half empty. He toasted me with it and took a long swallow.
“I haven’t made a sound all night, Lady, not one single noise out here. So what did you hear?”
“It sounded like you are in the most terrible agonizing pain… it sounded like you… were dying…”
He looked down at the ground.
I looked down at the ground. It was a long long way down. Did I mention I hate heights?
“So are you gonna… kill yourself… or do you wanna talk about it?”
“So you live all the way down there… but all the way at the far other end of the building?”
“Yeah”
“And you heard me all the way from all the way down there…and at the other end of the building…”
“Yeah. You were loud enough you woke me up from a sound sleep!”
“I haven’t made a single noise all night. Honest to God.”
“And you are in the most awful terrible overwhelming pain…I’m so sorry… it’s the most awful overwhelming pain. It’s the most awful overwhelming sound. I followed it all the way up here. I didn’t even know there were stairs up here.”
“Yeah. I jimmied the lock. It wasn’t easy. I might of broke it.”
“I figured. So are you gonna jump… or do you wanna talk about it? Because if you’re gonna jump I’m going back downstairs to bed, I’ve got a final in 6 hours.”

He was dumbfounded…
he had been drinking heavily, dangling his legs off the edge of a high rise building…
he had been going to finish the bottle and slide off the edge into oblivion…
he decided he wanted to talk about it.

After the first hour, he backed off a little from the edge. After the second he got up and sat back against a heat exchanger…
in 5 hours he told me his entire life story and concluded that in the warm sunrise that it was time for him to go downstairs to his apartment and go to bed and “sleep it all off” because life was really worth living after all…

in 6 hours and no sleep whatsoever I took that final… and passed that class with a B+ in spite of a missing laboratory assignment…
and I know that guardian angels are real.

 

[NewsTheMan]

I didn’t read your story but…

but ‘so what’? Well, the so what is that its just a fact. 2+2=4 but so what. Well, it doesnt equal 5, or 3, etc etc. Saying so what doesn’t amount to anything.

And your philosophy/theology is flawed, or at least at a linguistic level. Angels do not take human form, they *appear *in human form. They are never actually human or becoming human. They always remain an angel. Much in the same way that a man in a gorilla suit remains a man and isn’t taking gorilla form like a shapeshifter. I assume your line of argument is that the organ donor was the posters gaurdian angel in “human form”, or something to that effect? Well, you are wrong.

I too know that guardian angels are real. Yup. And that they are distinct beings from humans. And that treating any deceased human as a guardian angel is just flat out wrong. And you seem to take great offence to that.

 

[karoleck]

Nice story FORMER CATHOLIC The question could be asked–what if the man jumped? Would that change your opinion? I only ask this because it is the Teaching Church that tells me of this reality of my Faith as expressed below.

no.336 of the Catholic Catechism states-

From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their (Angels) 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.

The Catechism states “besides each believer” does that mean that “former catholics” like yourself have driven your guardian away? Perhaps you might be surrounded by fallen angels (the devils)–Our Scriptures are full of stories of people tormented by evil spirits–why did your reject The Catholic Faith which is the same as rejecting Christ.I DO HOPE THAT YOU ARE NOT INTO “ANGEL WORSHIP”–this is against the First Commandment,as we should Worship God alone.

It was only a few days ago that I have given my Guardian Angel a name.I thought it
might help me to personalize the reality of my Angel and hence to take notice of the “tap on the shoulder” when I am tempted to go astray!

I pray to my Guardian Angel every morning with this prayer–

Oh Angel of God my guardian dear,to whom God’s Love commits Thee here ever

this day be at my side to light and guard and rule and guide.Amen

 

[former_Catholic]

Angels do not take human form, they *appear *in human form.

You’re absolutely right that “appear” might be a better word than “take”…but only in the case of “seeing” one as opposed to hearing, feeling, or otherwise sensing the presence of one, in which case “appearance” is not a factor. “Assume a human form” might also be better than “take”, but sounds even more awkward than “take” and is likewise as singularly visually limiting as “appear.” What word would you suggest that doesn’t limit it to a visual image?

 

[NewsTheMan]

You’re absolutely right that “appear” might be a better word than “take”…but only in the case of “seeing” one as opposed to hearing, feeling, or otherwise sensing the presence of one, in which case “appearance” is not a factor. “Assume a human form” might also be better than “take”, but sounds even more awkward than “take” and is likewise as singularly visually limiting as “appear.” What word would you suggest that doesn’t limit it to a visual image?

I’m not really understanding your line of thought. If you are merely feeling, sensing or hearing an angel - they are an angel. visually they can appear as a human, so that we can understand them. but if we “feel” something then… its like saying, i feel good today. you don’t ask someone but what word would you suggest that doesnt limit ‘good’ to your feeling of ‘good’. It is just there. Similarly if an angel affects you in such a way.

it its feeling something, a certain qualia like feeling, then that might very well be an angel if it is an angel. What im saying is its uneccessary then to speak about the form of whatever of the angel. If you SEE an angel it is because they appear in a human form. But that is totally irrelevant to anything.

 

[former_Catholic]

Nice story FORMER CATHOLIC The question could be asked–what if the man jumped? Would that change your opinion?

I know guardian angels are real. If the man jumped it wouldn’t have changed my opinion in the least. Shrug. Free will is universal law. It has its consequences.
The hierarchy of the Church also exhibits free will, and in the last 10 years has also faced some major consequences, one of which is a great many people leaving who still have close friends and family within it and so drop by to visit.

 

[former_Catholic]

I’m not really understanding your line of thought. If you are merely feeling, sensing or hearing an angel - they are an angel. visually they can appear as a human, so that we can understand them. but if we “feel” something then… its like saying, i feel good today.

Feeling= the sensation of physical touch or movement, as in the sense that something bushed by you just before you might have stepped out in front of a speeding car