WHAT IS AN ANGEL? (FATHER’S FAITH NOTES: AUGUST 22, 2021)
Throughout this time of preparation for our feast day, the period of St. Michael’s Lent, I hope to share with you some more about the angels, especially St. Michael, and the role they can play in our spiritual life. To start, just what is an angel? The word “angel” comes from the Greek “angelos,” which simply means messenger. This name fits these spiritual beings because it describes one of the roles that they most often are seen playing in scripture. To give a more thorough definition, angels are purely spiritual, personal beings. Whereas we are a combination of body and soul, they are only spirits. But, like us, they are persons, meaning they can think and choose and have individual identities. They are also creatures like us, more powerful than we are, but still creatures. Tradition teaches that angels were created by God sometime before humanity. In one beautiful image, St. Augustine suggests that, when God said, “Let there be light,” that light He created was the angels.
The existence of angels is attested to many places in Sacred Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. They appear in various roles: communicating messages from God, protecting God’s people, guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden, and announcing the birth of Jesus. Scripture also speaks to the fact of fallen angels – spirits that rebelled against God and now set themselves against His people – and the warfare between those angels that remained faithful and those who fell. This makes clear that we inhabit a world filled with spiritual realities far beyond what we can see. As humans, we stand at the intersection of the physical and spiritual realms. Learning more about and developing our devotion to the angels helps us engage more deeply the spiritual side of life and draws us closer to God. During the next few weeks, we will continue to explore other aspects of this reality. In the meantime, I encourage you to keep praying the Chaplet of St. Michael as one way to deepen that devotion.
Have a blessed week,
Fr. Michael