At Our Side The Hidden Ministry of Our Guardian Angels- Fr Ambrose Criste, O.Pream

[Music] the following is an e wtn special presentation [Music] you if you're at all interested in what we're talking about today the guardian angels I have a lot of references I can send to you and I'd be happy to just have your name in your email address and I can pass along some more information if you're interested I'll send out a group email in the next you know several days and that way if you have questions for me that we don't address or we don't have time for whatever I'd be happy to talk with you more about this and I'd be happy to stay in touch if you're at all interested so like I said I'm a Norbertine priest my name is father Ambrose I come from a monastery down in Orange County st. Michael's a being and my responsibilities there are with the men in formation the seminarians we have a lot thanks be to God a lot of vocations there are thirty-one seminarians in our monastery and I take care of them as their spiritual father teach some of their classes oversee their their lives and they're running a summer camp apostolate right now which means I can sneak away for this wonderful conference so they're busy doing other things right now and they don't miss me when I'm gone so there there was a couple of years ago a friend of mine businessman down in Orange County not a Catholic man he was working on a book about about business and finance and sort of strategy and in the business world one of those business self-help kind of books and he asked me as just a friend of his to read this book just to give some feedback some editorial help and whatnot and I was happy to do that and I was delighted and surprised to read right in the beginning of this man's book about business and finance he was speaking about angels he was speaking specifically about angels who apparently are the first capital investors in a team business venture and in the business world these are called angels and I thought that was just delightful so of course at this conference there are a lot of people involved in in the business world and so they have an idea about angels even if they don't have a theological idea about angels just yet but of course there are some parallels there we have a rather misleading depiction of angels I think in contemporary culture usually guarding or guiding children sometimes as sweet and silly we need babies and of course angels do guard and guide children and they can be sweet and loving in their care for us that's all true but they are so much more than that there's so much more than that and what I want to do with you this afternoon is to speak about that more what more angels are and I want to do that with some very kind of theological treatment from Saint Thomas Aquinas I want to do that with the help of the scriptures and some of the stories from the lives of the Saints and hopefully by the end of our conversation about that together if you have any questions I'd like to address those too and so that's kind of how we'll spend our time together hopefully it won't be all just very detailed and intense theology but also some inspiration and hopefully also some application to your lives which is really the most important part of the doctrine of the holy angels so you might know that a hundred years ago almost a hundred years ago Our Lady appeared to the seers of Fatima next year we'll celebrate the centenary of the apparition operations in Fatima and of course that was a very pivotal moment in the life of the church in the modern world was when Our Lady appeared there in Fatima and calling for prayer and conversion and repentance from sin well it's not quite so well known that before Our Lady appeared the angel guardian of the country of Portugal appeared those apparitions preparing the way for Our Lady to come were exactly a hundred years ago in the months between April and October in 1916 so we are now right in the centenary of the apparition of the guardian angel of Portugal to the children who became the seers of Our Lady there in Fatima and I think it's a good place for us to start because I wanted to share with you what those children said were the results of their time with the guardian angel of the country of Portugal because of course we human being as I'll tell about in a moment have guardian angels but so do countries and and the angels are working in a lot of elderly in all of the created order so the angel of Fatima inspired the children they said with these kinds of thoughts and virtues sister Lucia and the other children they're said that when they saw this angel they received from that experience lofty ideals heroic courage unbounded generosity and doing God's will if we're devoted to our guardian angel then we can expect those same effects in our life that those children receive in their lives lofty ideals and elevated thoughts heroic courage an unbounded generosity in doing God's will in short we can expect holiness because isn't that what holiness is those kind of virtues so in this presentation I want to give you some of the traditional doctrine behind this beautiful reality of the guardian angels and along the way we'll hear as I said some inspiring stories from the Holy Scriptures and the lives of the saints and finally then we'll discuss those practical steps that you and I can do to cooperate more completely with these very very special beings in our lives so first some doctrine this is the hard going part of this presentation the third that this is the digging down into the salt mines of Saint Thomas Aquinas so you have to be patient with me the way we'll do this is in atomistic way I'll ask a question which Saint Thomas asks and then we'll see what how we can answer those questions okay and they're probably questions that might occur to you too now st. Thomas of course is called the angelic doctor you might know that he's the angelic doctor precisely because he of all of the theologians of the history of our church has really articulated in the most precise and throw away the doctrine of the angels so we ask first are we guarded by angels of course st. Thomas teaches that we are guarded by angels and according to the plan of divine providence he explains in fact everything in the material order is governed by angels that begins all the way with creation that st. Thomas and the Fathers of the Church interpret the creation story through the lens of the Ministry of the Holy Angels who then affect everything that God says all things movable and variable are moved by beings which are immobile and invariable in other words material things are governed by immobile immaterial spiritual substances and st. Thomas is very beautiful description of the created universe which he picks up through the whole course of Western civilization it's part of our tradition all the way back even reaching into the Greek philosophers it reveals how the whole material universe is moved and ordered by the angelic order so the ancients talked about this like the this the music of the spheres that the planets rotating around the Sun have a kind of harmony which is angelic but then even down to the most minut details of the material order your life and mine this podium rocks trees the angels are involved in their life and being why is this because we mobile fallible creatures material things we can err in our knowledge we can err in our judgment and of course you know as well as I we can err in the choices of our will so we need the help of beings which are far superior to us who cannot err and they can inform us so that we are less likely to err in our judgement in our thoughts and then in the choices of our will we need these angel Guardians because our free will can move us to the good but not perfectly alas that's the reality of our fallen nature we don't always clearly see what's good for us and even when we do you know as well as I do that we don't always choose it right so our angels then are the creatures which God gives to us who can infuse within us the correct things that we're lacking now what might that look like our angels doing this kind of mediation here right in our intellect in our will what might that look like well have you ever had your telephone ring and you know before you even look at the screen or answer the phone who's on the other end of that phone has that ever happened to you or you walk into a room a crowded room and you know that you have to just go talk to somebody or let's say that you're having a conversation maybe a difficult conversation at with your family or at the office and there are words coming out of your mouth and you don't know where they're coming from because you didn't premeditate those words and you can't believe almost that you're saying what you're saying has that ever happened to you now we might and I think very often we do chalk all of that up to some kind of coincidence but in fact that's probably not coincidental at all and st. Thomas according to this doctrine of the way that the angelic spirits are informing material things would say that no this is not coincidental at all this is precisely the interface between the angelic world and our lives another question from st. Thomas when does our angel begin to take charge of us when does that angel begin to guard us I think most people if you just ask that question they would say at the moment of conception very interestingly st. Thomas teaches that the angel is not assigned to a human being at conception because while an infant is in his or her mother's womb the mother's guardian angel also guards the infant in her womb that's a very beautiful idea and that at birth we are assigned a guardian angel at the moment of our birth and that's true for every human being Christians non-christians obviously a baby who's born is not baptized yet so the unbaptized receive a guardian angel muslims hindus any religion any person any human being born is given a guardian angel st. thomas teaches now this is all the more remarkable because every other kind of creature in the universe in god's creation doesn't have an angel for each individual member of that species we are the only ones who receive our own guardian angel there is an angel which governs blue whales there is one angel which governs all the little black birds that are the swallows you see swamp flying around here there's one for the whole species because one angel is so powerful in its the perfection of its intellect it can very easily govern a whole species so if that same trend were to continue then there would be one angel for the whole human race one angel is enough to govern the whole human race so this remarkable fact that because of the dignity that is ours as human creatures human beings each of us gets his or her own angel now there is for example as I said one angel for each animal species down in our monastery in Orange County we have some of you have been there we have a very beautiful little monastery with beautiful gardens and a great variety of birds because of our extensive gardens so there's one kind of bird a costa's hummingbird they're up here too I've seen a few of them around this particular bird and a kosis hummingbird gets into our Abbey Church we have a small to Abbey Church but we leave the doors open because it's not air-conditioned so please come in folks please come on in so when one of these little hummingbirds gets into our church they're profoundly stupid creatures and they can't find their way out there are other species of birds like the wonderful little Brewers blackbirds that are all kind of spunky wandering around this property right now one of those comes into the church it always finds its way out there very bright little birds so the coast is hummingbird they look really sleek and and and fast and very intelligent out in the garden you put it inside a building and it's just it's going to die well of course we at our monastery happen to be kind of fervent Thomas so we're talking about this at the dinner table one time about the problem of hummingbirds getting into the church and dying which is you know a little sad so we thought well you know there's a guardian angel for that species of hummingbird why not pray to the guardian angel of costa's hummingbirds to get the birds out of the church and you know what it works it's that we're delighted discovered that now it doesn't always work but that kind of a thing of appealing to these higher and more intelligence spirits is the kind of thing that I think we can incorporate into our Christian lives even in the most ordinary things like the silly little bird that mistakenly finds its way into a building right so that was a little diversion just to show you how remarkable it is that you and I have our own angel this is a really extraordinary thing they're so powerful that one would be sufficient for the whole human race nevertheless God and His infinite goodness gives us each his or her own and that angel is ever at our side listen to how st. Thomas writes about this man while in this state of life is as it were on a road by which he should journey towards heaven on this road man has threatened by many dangers both within and from without and therefore as guardians are appointed for men who have to pass by an unsafe road so an angel guardian is assigned to each man as long as he is a Wayfarer when however he arrives at the end of life he no longer has a guardian angel but in the kingdom he will have an angel to reign with him in Hell a demon to punish him another question from Saint Thomas what does our angel do for us now I want to spend some time upon this what our angel does for us because really this is where the rubber meets the road right there mighty info' intellects in there very very powerful wills and they rule with a kind of irresistible strength so when an angel takes charge of a soul there at the moment of a person's birth that angel devotes all of his attention all of his intelligence all of his knowledge all of his power all of his vigilance to helping that soul get to heaven when the person is sleeping when the person is awake when the person is in the state of grace when the person has fallen into sin the angel does nothing but that nothing and that's true even when it seems like maybe the angel is not at work Saint Thomas explains it is evident that neither man nor anything at all is entirely withdrawn from the Providence of God for in as much as a thing has being so far is it subject to Providence that extends over all being what he means by that is by the fact by virtue of the fact that we exist our angel cares for us that's really really consoling I think he allows insofar as God's providence allows man to suffer some defect or punishment that is sometimes God permits us to fall into sin according to his Providence even still the angel is not forsaking that human creature what that means is that sometimes God in His wisdom and we have a hard time cygnus in our lives sometimes God wants us to suffer right we struggle you know it as well as I do we struggle with temptation sometimes we struggle even with sin or we struggle with all kinds of things and we might think well this is outside of God's providence what say Thomas is saying is that no this is within God's providence because on the other side of that struggle is some better life deeper virtue more confidence than we had before and so of course our guardian angel is watching that whole process and with us every step of the way listen to what Saint Padre Pio says about this now I don't know how much you know about the life of st. Padre Pio he was an unbelievably prodigious Saint had the stigmata was a man who saw his angel saw the demons who are tempting him he was a man who during World War two flew in front of an American fighter jet to stop the the bomb from destroying San Giovanni Rotondo have you heard that story he was a man who could by locate and this is corroborated by people who are far far outside the Catholic Church is it he was an amazing person well he would see his angel and he would see the demons who were tempting him father father Pio was often beat up in his monastic cell by demons I wanted to listen to what he wrote to his spiritual father another another Franciscan called father Agustin padre augustine ohm and he wrote this to his spiritual father after he spent a night or some nights being beaten up in his monastic cell by demons okay so he writes I shall not relate to you in what manner and what manner they go about beating me those reprobates sometimes I feel I'm close to death Saturday I thought they really wanted to put an end to me I turned to my angel I turned to my angel whom he saw there and after making me wait for some while I love this he finally showed up flying around me and singing hymns to the divine majesty with his angelic voice there followed one of those ordinary scenes there followed one of those ordinary scenes for Padre Pio I love that I shouted at him harshly for having made me wait so long since I had not failed to call him to my aid to punish him that is to punish his guardian angel to punish him I did not want to look him in the face I wanted to hold my distance I wanted to run away and hide from him but he poor fellow approached me nearly Kuantan nearly crying he caught hold of me so that raising my eyes I might look into his face and find it wholly grieved and behold he said I am always close to you my beloved youth my affection for you shall not extinguish even with your life I know that your generous heart beats always for our mutual beloved you would cross every mountain every desert to find him to see him again do not grow weary for you must wait a bit more for the present he can give you nothing like the ray of a star the perfume of a flower the sigh of a harp the caress of the wind yet do not cease to ask for him ask it from him constantly for his supreme pleasure is to have you with him that's the message of Padre Pio's angel to Hanuman I think is a very beautiful thing and then listen what Padre Pio says he says poor dear angel he's too good will he succeed in making me recognize the grave obligation I have of gratitude to him I just love that so let's elaborate a little bit further my friends on what our angel does for us I want to just enumerate some ways that we can experience in our life that you can experience in your life this constant loving devotion of these angelic spirits so first our angel Labor's every moment to make us better holier happier to share with us his joy his happiness his holiness second he prays for us without ceasing this is very consoling to know that there is a creature who's a much more powerful creature than I am praying for me always that's a very consoling thing of course we get this from the Gospel of st. Matthew our Lord Himself teaches this doctrine this is where we get the first revelation clearly from our Lord about the doctrine of the guardian angels is Matthew chapter 18 he says see that you do not despise one of these little ones the little children for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my father who is in heaven so even while our angel is assisting us here below he's also at the same time worshiping God looking at God's face they can do that because they don't they're not bound by time and matter like we are he's praying for us without ceasing third the angel is constantly whispering into our ears counsel wise counsel loving counsel constantly I gave you that illustration about walking into a room and knowing that yet is so speak with somebody or finding words coming out of your mouth and you don't know where they come from this is that moment of interface of the angel giving us wise counsel if we're sensitive to that if we're attentive to that forth the angel defends us from the attacks of the enemy the demons who are relentless in their temptation every bit as persistent in their temptation of us as the angels are in their care of us because of course demons are angels to you so the angel is constantly keeping that evil demon that evil angel away from us keeping their their involvement in our life to a minimum our angel is fighting a spiritual battle for us 24 hours a day even while we're sleeping so we find ourselves in the middle of this extraordinary spiritual battle and I don't know if you remember I certainly remember as a child watching the the cartoons where there was often depicted an angel and a demon right and of course that's funny and it's it's it's the cause of great you know great cartoon humour and you know violence and everything else but in a way the Fathers of the Church actually teach that and st. Thomas teaches that to gregory of nyssa expounds clearly that we're kind of suspended between these powers of light and darkness listen to what gregory of nyssa says connecting this truth about this spiritual warfare to our guardian angel saint gregory of nyssa writes after our nature had fallen in sin we were not abandoned in our fall by God but one angel one of the beings who have an incorporeal nature was set up to aid the life of each of us the destroyer of our nature in his turn did just the same by sending us an evil pernicious angel to the detriment of human nature so in a way we have a guardian angel and we have a guardian demon that might sound kind of terrifying but it's true according to the Fathers of the Church it's good to remember who's victorious right in the middle of that kind of warfare Saint great event it continues it now depends upon man who finds himself between two angels each one seeking to lead him in a different way to make the one triumph over the other that's our job to make one of those angels triumphant the good angel presents his spirit with the fruits of virtue everything that those who do good see in hope the other angel that demon holds up before him the pleasures of the earth pleasures which hold no hope for the future but pleasures which can captivate the minds of the foolish when they are seen and enjoyed in the present that's very important for us to remember I think that the way that the demon your demon your assigned demon is tempting you is about the pleasures of this world and that sometimes is masked as good right so we have to be very discerning in our Christian minds about what we are giving our affections to what we give our attention to you so the battle is on and what about when we fall into sin what about then or what about when trouble befalls us does our angel grieve at these things st. Thomas teaches us that in fact they don't grieve even then because they are enjoying the Bliss of heaven they're always looking upon God's face what they see is that longer view that I mentioned a moment ago that providential view where there might be some real struggle suffering death in a family there might be physical suffering there might be financial struggle or even our sin and the angel sees this big view of God's providence it's a great thing for us to remember the year of mercy right that God's mercies accompanying us even through those most difficult things most difficult times so another thing I enjoy does for us in case you're enumerated them this is the fifth thing that our angel does for us he saves us from many other dangers and evils most of which we are completely unaware a little story here so in my monastery where a large monastery we have over 80 members of our community and people can get in all kinds of trouble as you might imagine not so much moral trouble please God but all kinds of physical trouble so one of our priests was spending a lot of time on the freeway he was helping to construct the convent of the Norbertine sisters who are also a very thriving orbiting community but they're about three hours from us so he was driving back and forth sometimes even up and back in the same day helping to build their monastery to help them to do to do this beautiful thing and of course driving back and forth on the freeway and a man who's already sleep deprived because monastic life is sleep deprived he was prone to you know dozing off so he tells this story about how one night he was driving home late from the convent and this is how he found himself he found himself at the bottom of a freeway ramp and the car was in park the engine running the light at the bottom of the freeway ramp was green it was an exit that he hadn't needed to take hadn't planned on taking what had happened he realized when he woke up is that he had fallen asleep up on the freeway and that the car had made it so obviously his guardian angel and he knew this just he had that conviction that his guardian angel had driven his car down the freeway ramp put it in park for him so that he wouldn't die in a crash you know that's a that's that kind of thing happened I'm sorry to say many times in this priests life one time he actually he has a very very busy angel went one time he actually he actually did wreck the car this was finally this kind of the end of the story therefore he actually did wreck the car but his angel was involved even in the very serious wreck off an embankment the car went all the way down embankment and totaled the car he walked away from this wreck without a headache without a scratch and the car was a total wreck at the bottom of a gully there so there they're powerful creatures I have another story a similar kind of angelic story again from the life of st. Padre Pio his life as I said was really rich in these angelic stories and there was in amongst his spiritual children an Italian lawyer who came to see Padre Pio and this lawyer recounts after the death of Padre Pio that he was driving with his family in a car in the north of Italy and he was getting drowsy so he asked the people in the car if they could drive they were all sleeping in the car so he just figured he would he would suffer and and work it out and he would try to stay awake well the car he falls asleep the car drives up onto the railroad tracks and goes about 15 miles along the railroad tracks he wakes up and discovers what's happened there and he says well why didn't someone wake me and his son who witnessed all of this said well you know it was kind of strange you were sort of he weren't responding when we were talking to you and you were swerving in a kind of unusual way and going up onto the tracks and but you seem to be completely in control of the car so we didn't want to scare you because we didn't know exactly what was happening different the family witnessed the angel driving the man's car and he of course didn't realize what was happening so later that year they go to make their pilgrimage down to san giovanni rotondo he speaks to his spiritual father Padre Pio Padre Pio sees him come in the room and he says it was your guardian angel he didn't even have to tell him the story so that was your guardian angel says you need to be grateful he told him since you slept while your guardian angel was driving your car so more practically for for you and for me I mean that's a very practical thing because that's happening even when we're not aware of it and I of course you I'm sure have stories in your lives about how that works I heard another story recently a friend of ours a friend of our abeam years ago was supposed to take a plane the next day and he had this conviction as he left his place of work he was a business owner he was leaving the building to go home into pack to travel the next day and he walked to the door of his business he said I just had this conviction I couldn't get on that plane the next day and he had never done that he had never missed a plane it never reached as travel sky I didn't ride this is back in the 70s he said I just I couldn't ignore that and he didn't get on the plane the next day the plane went down in a crash the next day and everybody on the plane died there's on the eastern part of United States this happens it's real but more practically and I think where we can invite our angel in more constantly is in the most important decisions and events of our life and this is the sixth thing that our angel does for us he helps us with our choices who to marry him what business choices to make what state in life we need to be in which career path to follow all of that that the angel is there assisting us at that place where we are discerning those voices inside our heads and they usually speak to us with our own voice so there's a lot more we could say about all of that and about what our angel does more than what I just enumerated for you but I want to I want to just end this little section as kind of doctrinal section with just a little word about those moments of trial and suffering because you know that can seem like a time when we're feeling abandoned and I think it's consoling to know that there is no such time there's no such time in our Christian life when we are abandoned of course by God we're not abandoned by God but even by this special creature this angel who is with us in another letter to father Augustine ohm after again the devil's had come and beaten up on Padre Pio the saint relates the subsequent conversation that he had with his guardian angel and I want to read for you this conversation Padre Pio had with his angel I raised a complaint to my dear angel and he after having given me quite a little sermon added give thanks to Jesus that he treats you as one chosen to follow him closely up the ascent to Calvary I want to read for that that for you again give thanks to Jesus that he treats you as one chosen to follow him closely up the ascent to Calvary I behold with joy and I am deeply moved o soul entrusted to my care by Jesus how Jesus treats you do you think that I would be as happy if I did not see you so thrashed I who in holy charity desire greatly your advantage delight to see you evermore in such a state of suffering Jesus permits these assaults by the devil because his divine pity endears you to himself and he wants to make you like unto himself in the anguish of the desert of the garden of the cross that's really really consoling that's really hard right this is what our Lord meant when he said take up your cross daily and follow me right that's what it means to be a Christian not just to endure suffering but to will the suffering that God wills for us I want to continue then with Padre Pio he says his angel says defend yourself always distance yourself from and despise the malign insinuations of the devil and where your strength does not arrive do not be afflicted beloved of my heart for I am near to you this is this is really amazing this is I think the essence of the Christian life and the meaning of suffering articulated by a saint and by his guardian angel that's really neat I think of course Saint Padre Pio is not the only one who talks like that right st. Teresa of Avila she says that when a friend suffers and you know this when a friend suffers we feel sorrow and we would prefer to bear the sufferings ourselves right and at the same time as we reflect on how we wish that they weren't suffering we can also rejoice at the profit we see in our friends who suffer have you seen that maybe someone who has some terrible tragedy in their family and on the other side of the tragedy the family is stronger because of that right or maybe in your own family so just to wrap up before we take some questions I want to just make a few suggestions about the application of all of these beautiful ideas to your life into mine we've spent a fair amount of time with some doctrine and I want to just wrap up with some practical steps for you okay what can we do to bear fruit from this wonderful marvelous relationship that God has ordained for us with our guardian angels one we can do our best to remain in the state of grace is so important because when we are in the state of grace our angel can speak directly to our intellect into our will there's no obstacle to the inspirations they want to give us the Fathers of the Church including Saint Clement of Alexandria st. basil the great they described they discuss how before we were baptized before we entered into the state of grace our angels were nearly powerless over us because we're fallen creatures infected by original sin and that this life comes of course with baptism and that also brings with it adoption as sons and daughters of God all of that comes with being in the state of grace when we're in the state of grace were able to notice the promptings that our angel is giving to us we're more disposed to receive those subtle messages and we're more easily able to answer so what does that mean for you and for me practically speaking it means go to confession often that's what it means go to confession often I tell Catholic people I know you should I should we should go to confession at least once a month or god forbid as soon as we fall into the state of grave sin and certainly we had to do that before we go to receive Holy Communion anyway right we want to be Christians who are always in a state of grace and rush to the sacrament when we're not then our angel can do whatever he wants with us we become very powerful instruments in the kingdom of God we become like tools in God's tool belt second we can be more consciously aware of our angels role in helping us as we pray the father's the church I won't I won't read you the long quotations I have about this they're beautiful about how our angel takes our prayers up to heaven and then brings back down to us the fruits the merits the graces it's kind of he's kind of the turn sort of you know he's the the turning point for the the rising and and return of the order of grace our Lady does that to you of course they're in her Immaculate Heart but our angel is the messenger that's what angels are we can be more consciously aware of them helping us as we pray third we can pray to our guardian angel why not right we ask the sings in heaven to intercede for us we ask our friends here below to pray for us we can ask our angel to guide to guard to protect us to enlighten us forth we can send our angel to help dispose those with whom we interact let's say you have some complicated difficult business conversation that you need to have let's say that you have to correct your children or your grandchildren or your spouse you have to have a difficult conversation send your guardian angel ahead to enlighten the people that you need to speak with you can ask their angel to do the same you can pray to other people's guardian angels there's a priest in our monastery who every time he preaches he stands at the POE at the Ambo and he looks around the room he looks at the whole room he's looking in the face of everybody he's preaching to he's praying to the guardian angels of the congregation to open their hearts and his own heart so that he can be a powerful vessel of the Word of God as a beautiful practice he does it habitually every homily he preaches and we can do something like that in family life in in the business life lastly fifthly we can invite them into the most ordinary details of our lives have you ever been worried about someone whom you love out on the road late at night why not send your angel to help them have you ever awoken from a terrible dream or do you sometimes lie awake unable to sleep because your mind is racing or because you're worried your angel is there never leaves your side and they want us to invite them in to all of those moments so I want to end with a prayer and then I want to entertain some questions and if you want to rush off and go to somebody else's talk because there's so much good happening here please do that will well answer questions just for another maybe 10 minutes or so and then I can stay out afterward in the hallway and speak with you some more there's a there is a sign-up sheet going around in case you want to stay in touch I'm happy to send you some bibliography about this I'd be happy to even send you the text of this talk if you'd like and I'm just give me your name and your email address and all and I'll follow up okay that that signup sheet is going around let's pray name of the Father the Son the Holy Spirit amen we began with the angel of God prayer I'm going to close with that prayer in Latin and so you can listen to that and ask your angels to guard you through the rest of this day and all days Angela de qui Cousteau's s may may t be commissioned pietatis super UNAM illumina custody' raj at Coubertin an amen the Father Son Holy Spirit amen thank you folks so now all questions and I think we have a microphone for that great yes in the back please you want to just wait for the microphone to reach you here it comes Oh beautifully in her book the interior castle yes conversing with our souls yeah I think it's on yes I'm wondering if you I'm wondering if you'd be so kind as to differentiate between a guardian angel and your soul oh of course yes so our guardian angel is a completely different being you have a soul you have an immortal soul I have one we each have our own immortal soul an angel is its own creature it is as different one angel from another as the Sun is from the moon as human beings are from rocks each individual angel they are they are a rational being superior to us and intellect and will they they are completely distinct being from us so your soul is what informs your body your soul is immortal your guardian angel is a totally different being a totally different creature welcome yes who has the microphone out oh great in the back thank you please stand oh thank you very much for your excellent talk and I actually think my question was sort of answered already but to help me visualize my guardian angel do you have any advice I feel like I need to picture some way yes and that's why I think all of those depictions that we see in Catholic religious art are helpful insofar as they're helpful you know the the picture of a of a wing and angel that was actually taken up from the classical world the victory the image of victory it's a pagan image that we adopted we baptized in Christianity we have images from the Old Testament about angels looking like people in fact we have it from the New Testament - do you remember the story from Acts when Saint Peter escapes from prison and he goes to rejoin the Apostles and the other apostles say oh we didn't realize it was you we thought it was your angel that's what they said in the early church angels were vividly present all around and they looked like us they often take on human form they did often in the Old Testament angels look like people so that we recognize them and so that we can then speak with them and interact with them but they themselves do not have bodies so they take on a human appearance often but they do not have a body of their own so the question was why are they feminine you know it's usually they were usually referred to in the masculine scripturally they I think are often depicted in a kind of ambiguous because they're they have no sex because they don't have bodies so they're not male nor female angels are not they are they are sexless beings so the way we depict them is really just it's a placeholder so that we can remember them and also so that we can interact with them angels as I said at the very beginning if you if you recall they govern the whole material order so angels and demons can work with matter they can move matter you know you've heard the horror stories of the demonic world that throws you know objects across rooms and so forth angels can do the same thing they can drive Mike on fares car off the freeway they can they can manipulate matter because they govern matter yes but they are not male or female yes okay thank you ma'am yes could you stand please thank you I know it's so hard thank you for an excellent talk I am a principal of a school okay and so we celebrate our the day of the guardian angel I have read that and I've heard a sister a very good sister say that you should not name your guardian angel can you speak to that yes thank you it's a good question it's a question I often get when I'm speaking about angels about the name of our angel so I these look these creatures are very very powerful and they're far superior to us in the order of creation far superior to us in a way it would be an affront to presume that we can know their name you recall from the Old Testament how when when God is doing something important it involves names and that the biblical idea about knowing someone's name means that you can exercise a certain authority over them when you know their name and you can call them by name it would be very presumptuous presumptuous of us to do that with our angel now there is some kind of New Age sort of techniques of asking for your angels name I don't recommend that I think it's a really bad idea because there are not around around us right now there are angels there are also demons all around us and if we simply ask sort of shout out into the dark who are you someone's going to answer and it may not be the one that we want and besides you remember from the book of Revelation even your name is something that you don't know right now you're going to be given in heaven Saint John says a little white stone do you remember that the end of the book of Revelation a little white stone with your real name on it and it's gonna be a name that only you and God are gonna see when you're when you arrive in heaven this very beautiful idea about our identity coming from God alone and that to be able to presume to have that kind of authority over another creature that so powerful would be presumptuous so thank you it's a very good question yes my guardian angel talked to your guardian angel about a problem I'm having absolutely can I ask your guardian angel to help my guardian angel was the problem I'm him absolutely absolutely and if we have a problem with a country like Ireland yes which we do my organization is trying to help some people in Ireland okay can we pray to local guardian angels in Ireland yes and you can pray to the angel of Ireland countries have angels so as a human being we can kind of if I can use the word we could pray ask other angels to help us absolutely I think I think they want us to about what kind of form angels take because they seem to be spiritual beings yeah you talk about the mean able to pass between here and heaven and how Padre Pio could see and they could see his guardian angels and they can influence matter so it seem they have some sort of physical nature is that right were they do not have a physical nature they can take on a human form and they can manipulate the material order far beyond anything that we can imagine they can whip up an identity that looks exactly like a human body and acts like one so but they do not have a physical nature of any kind they're totally spiritual beings you know two unrelated questions first I've had a number of moments like the ones that you described where I intuitively knew something that I had no right to know or said something didn't know where the words came from you know I've always attributed that to the Holy Spirit as opposed to a guardian angel so you know how do you draw the distinction between those two things and the second question would be when I ask a saint to intervene on my behalf it's very natural to ask for true intercession yeah some of the things that you describe angels doing yeah I'm almost asking them directly for something and I'm wondering theologically is that appropriate okay so those are actually very related questions and they're not unrelated questions there there is a st. Denis the areopagus dionysius the areopagite which st. Thomas rests heavily upon has a beautiful doctrine about the way things work in this in this created world things emanate from God and they return to God as things emanate from God they pass through the angelic order first so God works through the holy spirit upon you and upon me upon all of us the Holy Spirit being a person the Divine Trinity emanates that divine power through the angelic order so when you're receiving an illumination that of course is something divine mediated by angels so in other words to answer your question there isn't a distinction necessarily between the Holy Spirit speaking to your to your interior life and an angel speaking to you interior life because of course everything comes from God so what's happening there is that inspiration is coming from the Holy Spirit through the mediation of the angelic order that's what the Fathers of the Church would say we don't really speak like that so much in the modern church because we have a hard enough time just kind of getting on board with wanting the Holy Spirit to be part of our life remembering that there is a Holy Spirit we don't usually have the kind of huge global worldview of Christendom to make these kind of fine distinctions about who's actually working when they're working so it's a very good question so you can then I think we obviously we don't adore an angel in the same way we adore God we we can pray to an angel but we worship God so we make all those same distinctions we may with that as we make when we're speaking with the Saints yes sir that's a very good question I think I'm going to just off the cuff I would say that the only way they would know that is if God revealed that to them but of course they are dwelling an eternity in the same way that the Saints are dwelling an eternity and so there is no there is no unfolding of time for them they are living in the eternal now so if God would permit them to see that they would see that it's good we're going to wrap up because there's another talk in this room and I'll just step outside in case anybody else has any questions thank you so much for coming [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Napa Institute

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Id: 9qwhShWlfig

Length: 54min 42sec (3282 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2017