For He shall give His angels...

hello we've just said vespers first especially the feast of michael and all angels what can we say about angels well we often have a very popular idea of what they should be um usually people dress up in night shirts uh with wings and a circle of halo around a circle of light around their heads that's not quite how they appear in holy scripture sometimes they appear as men look at abraham's encounter with us with angels and lots in the in city of sodom gomorrah you can see angels of men at the two empty tomb but also we see other appearances of them um at the birth the nativity of our lord um the enunciation where their appearance is not described or we can see them in the book of ezekiel or isaiah or in the apocalypse and they're they're they're so confusing and i think it's fair to say that neither ezekiel isaiah or john really have the language to to to accurately express what they're seeing they see it in bits and somehow we're supposed to piece them together but what we can say is that the church believes in angels and archangels and all this wonderful hierarchy um thomas aquinas talks about nine uh hierarchical angels and there are other other counts as well so we're faced with this choir invisible that we don't know and yet we have the lord um talking about the little children have angels uh watching over them from which we get our idea of guardian angel um we also have a really bizarre pop bizarre popular idea that when we die we become angels and this that's just not supported in scripture at all that's not where we go we don't become angels because angels uh if we believe the the the church fathers angels are pure spirit and man is a rational soul in a in a body or a body with a rational cell depending how you see it so we are facing with these wonderful beings for he shall give his angels charged over the that they god uses angels indeed the word angel comes from the greek angelos meaning a messenger so any one of us could be an angel in some way by just by bearing a message but they're more than that we're not really permitted to know who they are we've got three names uh in holy scripture we've got michael um in book of daniel and in the uh the apocalypse of saint john we've got gabriel in the gospels and we've got uh raphael in the book of tobit and there are others as well you can pick up something more popular books like the book of enoch and the like um which is a bit more colorful and nothing's not exactly um not exactly scripturally subscriptly sound but it's clear that human human beings have believed in beings called angels and they bring us messages they influence us and they they convey thing things from us to god and vice versa now at the moment we're living in really a very uh unpleasant time socially um things are getting a bit tense uh politically we've got some quite a bit of political upheaval particularly in the uk at the moment where we've got um energy crisis and the army being called out potentially and so on and so forth um tempers are getting frayed um we've got this wretched pandemic which is still influencing a lot of how we live and work um and now it's going on for winter too the days of days are shortening the dark is coming and so it's very easy for us to sort of lose hope and it's very understandable you lose hope as well because we have lots of problems and we don't know how to face them but what we do know is that we are never alone in this and the angels give us that that strength to know that there is something beyond us something beyond our troubles something beyond our struggles the angels can help us to [Music] suffer well if you like we've got struggles um you know very well that life doesn't magically become better because uh god provides the solution for your problems no that's we know that's not how it works we have to bear our cross but the angels are with us just as sure as they were with our lord in his terrible bearing of the cross on up to golgotha they are with us and they minister to us if we let them when we are faced with dark times we have to look for light we look up we look for something lovely we look for something beautiful to remember that this world of darkness still possesses the goodness of god god still looks at what he has made and says that it is good and sometimes it takes the angel to lift up our head for us and it's well worth asking for that it's all worth praying the prayer of the guardian angels to try and ask for their their assistant in when we are feeling dark but don't worry don't worry about things because they will improve because god says they will improve we know we have an end and that end is god and that end is good this world is beautiful but it is imperfect it is fallen because human human beings have fallen we've chosen to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and that's filtered down through centuries and centuries and centuries that's how it goes we have to we have to take the consequences of that but the consequences aren't eternal they they die with us and we through the love of god pass from this life to the other and guess who supports us if any of you have heard the imparadism from foray's requiem as well with a listen the angels bear us to our rest in the gregorian canon of the mass it is the angels who bear our the offering of our sacrifice to god we are not alone though our angel our angelic friends are invisible and we are not permitted to know who they are why well there are a couple of times i think in saint john's gospel where these splendid beings appear not john's gospel the apocalypse and john where john forgets himself and tries to worship the angel and the angel says no no no worship god he gets confused and she's understandable so don't worry remember there is always hope hope lasts for eternity and if you are struggling you have my prayers for whatever they're worth you have my prayers you have the prayers of the angels you have the prayers of the saints in heaven you have the prayers of our holy mother mary and they are effective god sees by means of the angels god knows and god hears that cry of holy holy holy lord god of hosts which is a song that we ourselves echo in worship of him god sees god knows the angels will help us and we will find ourselves standing in that glorious glorious company of angels listening to their song and perhaps even being permitted to join in so god bless you especially if times are dark for you god bless you may you find the hope and knowledge of god very soon may you find your eternal rest in him when that time comes god bless you please pray for me

Channel: Fr Jonathan Munn

Views: 26

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: crfiO1IN7zA

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021