Guardian Angels

  • Thread starter Thread starter brotherhrolf
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
B

brotherhrolf

Guest
Ok. As a cradle Catholic who went to Catholic school from primer to grade 12 and throughout his adult life, I know I have a guardian angel and I have prayed to my guardian angel as we were all taught and I can testify on at least one ocassion when my guardian angel stepped in and preserved me and my young family. As far as I am concerned guardian angels are Sacred Tradition. I may be wrong. I’ve seen threads about naming your guardian angel but I am at a loss to explain to someone just where HMC got the concept of guardian angel. Honestly, it is second nature for me to say the Guardian Angel prayer at night before I go to sleep - it’s that deeply ingrained. But in trying to answer someone about this, I really don’t have a satisfactory answer. HELP!
 
40.png
brotherhrolf:
As far as I am concerned guardian angels are Sacred Tradition. I may be wrong.
Click to expand...
Teaching of the Church (Ott, p.120):

  1. *] The primary task of the good angels is the glorification and the service of God (Sent. certa)
    *] The secondary task of the good angels is the protection of men and care for their salvation (De fide)
    *] Every one of the faithful has his own special guardian angel from baptism (Sent. certa)
    40.png
    brotherhrolf:
    but I am at a loss to explain to someone just where HMC got the concept of guardian angel. … But in trying to answer someone about this, I really don’t have a satisfactory answer. HELP!
    Click to expand...
    It is Biblically founded:

    Matthew 18:10 See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.

    Acts 12:15 … Then said they: It is his angel.

    hurst
 
Indeed, it’s not expanded upon in Scripture, but it’s definately there in black and white. That was one of the more interesting realizations for me coming into the Church; I’d always thought the idea of guardian angels was a hokey kid’s thing. Imagine my suprise to read about them in Scripture, and find how deep the theology around them actually goes!

Everyone should thank their angel daily! I call mine Gabriel, even though I’m certain it’s not the Gabriel 😃

Peace and God bless!
 
40.png
Ghosty:
Indeed, it’s not expanded upon in Scripture, but it’s definately there in black and white.
Click to expand...
Yes it is, quite a bit…
Try this one:
Psa 91:11: he has given his angels orders about you to guard you wherever you go.
Click to expand...
God bless 🙂
 
Look into Thomas Aquinas for more information on Angels. He’s called the Angelic Doctor of the Church and has written alot about angels.

Also Peter Kreeft wrote a book called Angels (and Demons) what do we really know about them? I haven’t read it but my husband has and its on my “to read” shelf.
 
Angels appear to man as the medium of God’s power and will and to execute His dispensations. Angels reveal themselves to individuals as well as to the whole nation, in order to announce events, either good or bad, affecting them. Angels foretell to Abraham the birth of Isaac, to Manoah the birth of Samson, and to Abraham the destruction of Sodom. Guardian angels are mentioned, but not, as was later the case, as guardian spirits of individuals and nations. God sends an angel to protect the people after their exodus from Egypt, to lead them to the promised land, and to destroy the hostile tribes in their way (Ex. xxiii. 20, Num. xx. 16). In Judges (ii. 1) an angel of the Lord—unless here and in the preceding instances (compare Isa. xlii. 19, Ḥag. i. 13, Mal. iii. 1) a human messenger of God is meant —addresses the whole people, swearing to bring them to the promised land. An angel brings Elijah meat and drink (I Kings, xix. 5); and as God watched over Jacob, so is every pious person protected by an angel that cares for him in all his ways (Ps. xxxiv. 7, xci. 11). There are angels militant, one of whom smites in one night the whole Assyrian army of 185,000 men (II Kings, xix. 35); … Already in Dan. x. 20-21, the idea prevails that each nation has a heavenly guardian angel or prince. In Enoch, lxxxix. 59, the seventy shepherds are the guardian angels of the seventy nations over whom Michael, as Israel’s angel-prince, is set as ruler. With these seventy-one angel-princes of the world God sits in council when holding judgment over the world (Hebrew Enoch; Jellinek, “B. H.” v. 181); each pleading the cause of his nation before God (Targ. Yer. Gen. xi. 7-8, Pirḳe R. El. xxiv.). At times they accuse Israel (Pesiḳ. xxvii. 176a); at times they find especial merit in him (Suk. 29a). They are the “gods” whom the Lord crushes before He executes His punishment upon the nations in their charge (Suk. 29a, according to Ex. xii. 12; Soṭah, 9a). These angel-princes of the nations— of Babel, Media, Greece, Syria, and Rome—Jacob saw in his dream ascending and descending the ladder (Gen. R. lxviii., Pesiḳ. xxiii. 151a). The angel with whom Jacob wrestled was the angel-prince of Edom (Gen. R. lxxvii.), Samael, the head of all Satans (Tan., Wayishlaḥ, ii. 25). The name of the angel of Egypt is Miẓraim (Ex. R. xxi.) or Uzza (Midr. Wayosha’; Jellinek, “B. H.” i. 39; Hekalot, v. 172); that of Persia’s angel-prince is Dubbiel (= Beargod; Yoma, 77a, after Dan. vii. 5). But Michael, the angel-prince of Jerusalem (Zion, Targ. Ps. cxxxvii. 7-8), is set over all the seventy angels (Midr. Abkir; Yalḳ., Gen. § 132).
jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1521&letter=A&search=angel%20guardian#4370
 
40.png
hurst:
Teaching of the Church (Ott, p.120):

  1. *]The primary task of the good angels is the glorification and the service of God (Sent. certa)
    *]The secondary task of the good angels is the protection of men and care for their salvation (De fide)
    *]Every one of the faithful has his own special guardian angel from baptism (Sent. certa)

    It is Biblically founded:

    Matthew 18:10 See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.

    Acts 12:15 … Then said they: It is his angel.

    hurst
Click to expand...

  1. Hurst, could you please follow up with a clearer definition of what you have posted. I have placed in Red the point that i am in search of answers to…and the other red is a wondering of where you have seemed to mark them from something…a reference perhaps.

    I would like to read more on how it is told to us, and taught to us, that we do infact have one, how we can address them, or befriend them as we do Jesus…this is my interest…I am aware of other kinds, and the egsistance of them…just newly learned we have one specifically apointed to us.

    Thank you,

    Allana
 
40.png
TheRam:
Hurst, could you please follow up with a clearer definition of what you have posted. I have placed in Red the point that i am in search of answers to…and the other red is a wondering of where you have seemed to mark them from something…a reference perhaps.
…
How about if i ask saying, “PLEASE?”
Click to expand...
I have been out of town, but I would be glad to follow up now 🙂

“(Ott, p.120)” - This refers to a well-known theology book, “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” by Ludwig Ott.

“(Sent. certa)” - Sententia certa. Latin for “definite teaching” of the Church. Not a dogma, though.

“(De fide)” - Latin for “of the faith” of the Church. Anything marked as “De fide” is dogma requiring our belief as revealed from God.
40.png
TheRam:
I would like to read more on how it is told to us, and taught to us, that we do infact have one,
Click to expand...
That book would be a definitive starting place.
40.png
TheRam:
how we can address them, or befriend them as we do Jesus…this is my interest…
Click to expand...
For this, I would recommend reading lives of saints who had a special relationship to their guardian angels. Some come to mind.
  • Saint Gemma Galgani daily saw her guardian angel and was instructed by him. stgemma.com/eng_angel.html
  • Sister Maria Antonia (Cecy Cony 1900-1939) spent most of her life able to see her angel’s face. Autobiography “Under Angel Wings”. I read this and liked it.
Another book might be helpful: “The Guardian Angels” 64 pages.
olrl.org/books/guardianangels.shtml
“… shows how the Catholic teachings on the Guardian Angels are found in Sacred Scripture and in writings of Fathers and Doctors of the Church. The book relates fascinating stories about the Guardian Angels from the lives and writings of Saints including St. Catherine of Siena, Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Gemma Galgani, St. Frances of Rome, St. Francis de Sales, St. Margaret Mary, St. Gertrude the Great and others” (I have not read this one)

hurst
 
40.png
Ghosty:
Indeed, it’s not expanded upon in Scripture, but it’s definately there in black and white. That was one of the more interesting realizations for me coming into the Church; I’d always thought the idea of guardian angels was a hokey kid’s thing. Imagine my suprise to read about them in Scripture, and find how deep the theology around them actually goes!

Everyone should thank their angel daily! I call mine Gabriel, even though I’m certain it’s not the Gabriel 😃

Peace and God bless!
Click to expand...
I had a dream over 12 years ago or so that my guardian angel came to visit me and introduced himself to me as Benedict. True.
 
So if I were to ask my GA, “where are you at this moment?” what am I suppose to expect? I mean, I probably wont hear a voice saying, “Right here to your left!” or anything.

Do our GA really talk to us?
 
Paris, I began the original post on behalf of a shy friend of mine who has been “burned” before when asking questions on this thread. The friend asked me some questions that as a cradle Catholic I couldn’t rightly answer. Over the course of my life there have been many times that I know I have grieved my guardian angel but just as well I have throughout my life prayed for my guardian angel’s protection.

Do they “talk” to us? Well scripture and the lives of the saints are full of angels talking to us as messengers from God. But no, I have never had a conversation with mine. What I can say is that on certain occasions in my life when I contemplated doing something that was a sin, I could feel a presence by my side saying no. You may have seen cartoons in which an angel sits on one shoulder saying no and a devil on the other saying yes so I guess I’m not the only one to have experienced. this.

But I can also point out a certain morning when my wife and I were driving to visit my parents with our first born son (9 months old) behind me in his car seat. We had just moved out to the country to live across the driveway from my wife’s mother (so she could take care of her) and my wife directed me on a back road which I had never taken before. We reached an intersection on this country road and I did not see the stop sign nailed to a fence post at eye level instead of being on a separate pole. We sailed through the intersection. To this day, I can recall the incident clearly. I can see the oncoming car from the other direction and then, like Star Trek, we warped across the intersection and were saved. I am not making this up. I looked at my wife, she looked at me and we both said “Our guardian angels protected us” and then we both broke down crying. They are real and they DO protect us.
 
40.png
brotherhrolf:
Paris, I began the original post on behalf of a shy friend of mine who has been “burned” before when asking questions on this thread. The friend asked me some questions that as a cradle Catholic I couldn’t rightly answer. Over the course of my life there have been many times that I know I have grieved my guardian angel but just as well I have throughout my life prayed for my guardian angel’s protection.

Do they “talk” to us? Well scripture and the lives of the saints are full of angels talking to us as messengers from God. But no, I have never had a conversation with mine. What I can say is that on certain occasions in my life when I contemplated doing something that was a sin, I could feel a presence by my side saying no. You may have seen cartoons in which an angel sits on one shoulder saying no and a devil on the other saying yes so I guess I’m not the only one to have experienced. this.

But I can also point out a certain morning when my wife and I were driving to visit my parents with our first born son (9 months old) behind me in his car seat. We had just moved out to the country to live across the driveway from my wife’s mother (so she could take care of her) and my wife directed me on a back road which I had never taken before. We reached an intersection on this country road and I did not see the stop sign nailed to a fence post at eye level instead of being on a separate pole. We sailed through the intersection. To this day, I can recall the incident clearly. I can see the oncoming car from the other direction and then, like Star Trek, we warped across the intersection and were saved. I am not making this up. I looked at my wife, she looked at me and we both said “Our guardian angels protected us” and then we both broke down crying. They are real and they DO protect us.
Click to expand...
Sorry didn’t mean to ask something that has nothing to do with what your intention was.😦

But while it was discussed, if angels do talk to us, it must be like we sense it or something. Or could it be our own thoughts? Who knows.
 
Paris Blues:
Sorry didn’t mean to ask something that has nothing to do with what your intention was.😦

But while it was discussed, if angels do talk to us, it must be like we sense it or something. Or could it be our own thoughts? Who knows.
Click to expand...
Paris, I’ve read several of your threads over the last few months and yours is a lively mind. Perhaps you need to slow down, still that racing mind, and open yourself up to communication on a spiritual level. I went through a retreat in 8th grade which was entitled Be Still and Know that I Am God. This retreat taught us how to quiet our minds and “listen” to God. We were also taught that in Latin conscience means “con scientia” - with knowledge. But I believe that our guardian angels amplify our consciences and that is one of their major purposes.

If your thoughts are always racing, God and your guardian angel cannot get through.

OK all you folks out there who can do a far better job of explaining…I can describe the experience (hey the retreat worked) but I don’t have the apologetic skills. Can anyone do a better job of explaining than me?
 
Paris Blues:
Sorry didn’t mean to ask something that has nothing to do with what your intention was.😦

But while it was discussed, if angels do talk to us, it must be like we sense it or something. Or could it be our own thoughts? Who knows.
Click to expand...
First off Paris…beautiful picture in your signature!!

What you stated was exactly what i was trying to say…but i talk a lot, and at times miss the condensed versions impact!

Do we hear them if we ask? How is it that we can become friends in a holy respectful way, to someone so devoted to us?
 
–>Angels and Demons can both place thoughts in your head, or manifest to a physical level and talk to you as a human would.
When a demon puts thoughts in your head, it is generally tempting. oppositly, is those extremely strong thoughts of what we shouldnt do, those are most likely from our guardian angel (in the case that it is a stronger reserve than we are normally used to) most angels will not manifest and show you themselves, because alot of people would very easily be drawn away from the glory of God by having a creature of beauty and light in their presence… as stated before, they do appear and convey messages, just like in the bible. if you really want to see your angel, be persistant in your prayer to God, that He may show you. Also, angels all have their own name, any name we give them, as Ghosty mentioned the name Gabriel, is only a nickname. Some people have been told the real name of their angel (my friend has been told), but most of us make up a name… and Ghosty, cool name… Be Patient, Be Persistant, Be Prayerful
 
Well, I mean, how do we know for sure if it’s our GA or if it’s our own thought and common sense? I mean, I could be going to Mass Saturday but suddenly remember that I need to go to Confession first…

…now is that my GA or was that just my mere common sense? See what I mean?
 
That is where both faith and discernment comes into place. Its really hard to tell. as you become closer to your GA, you will be able to discern His advice in contrast to your own mental reasoning. It takes time.

and Paris, from what brotherhrolf said about needing to slow down, may i recommend the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Its a nice slow meditative exercise that deals with alot of things, it helps also with discernment, and discernment of spirits. But be patient, dont cheat, and dont look ahead…
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top