The 12 most important things to know about angels

As tomorrow is the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels, here is an excerpt from Angels (and Demons): What Do We Really About Them? (Ignatius Press; 2004, sixth printing) by Peter Kreeft:

The Twelve Most Important Things to Know About Them

1. They really exist. Not just in our minds, or our myths, or our symbols, or our culture. They are as real as your dog, or your sister, or electricity.

2. They’re present, right here, right now, right next to you, reading these words with you.

3. They’re not cute, cuddly, comfortable, chummy, or “cool”. They are fearsome and formidable. They are huge. They are warriors.

4. They are the real “extra-terrestrials”, the real “Super-men”, the ultimate aliens. Their powers are far beyond those of all fictional creatures.

5. They are more brilliant minds than Einstein.

6. They can literally move the heavens and the earth if God permits them.

7. There are also evil angels, fallen angels, demons, or devils. These too are not myths. Demon possessions, and exorcisms, are real.

8. Angels are aware of you, even though you can’t usually see or hear them. But you can communicate with them. You can talk to them without even speaking.

9. You really do have your very own “guardian angel”. Everybody does.

10. Angels often come disguised. “Do not neglect hospitality, for some have entertained angels unawares”—that’s a warning from life’s oldest and best instruction manual.

11. We are on a protected part of a great battlefield between angels and devils, extending to eternity.

12. Angels are sentinels standing at the crossroads where life meets death. They work especially at moments of crisis, at the brink of disaster—for bodies, for souls, and for nations.

Why do people think it's stupid to believe in angels?

One reason is a mistake about themselves: the failure to distinguish between (1) sense perception or imagination (which is a kind of inner sensing) and (2) reason, or intelligence, or understanding. We don't see pure spirits, and we can't imagine them. That doesn't mean we can't know or understand them. We can see and imagine the difference between a five-sided figure (a pentagon) and a six-sided figure (a hexagon), and we can also intellectually understand that difference. We cannot, however, sense or imagine the difference between a 105-sided figure and a 106-sided figure. Both look to us simply like circles. But we can understand the difference and even measure it exactly. So we can understand some things we can't see. We can't see qualities like good and evil either. What color or shape or size is evil? Yet we can understand them. We can imagine our brains, but not our minds, our personalities. But we can know them.

Many who deny angels deny or are uaware of the spiritual half of themselves. Angels are a touchstone of "know thyself". So are animals.

Aren't angels irrelevant today? This is the age of man, isn't it?

Yes, this is the age of man, of self-consciousness, of psychology. And therefore it is crucial to "know thyself" accurately today. The major heresies of our day are not about God but about man.

The two most destructive of these heresies—and the two most popular—are angelism, confusing man with an angel by denying his likeness to animals, and animalism, confusing man with an animal by denying his likeness to angels.

Man is the only being that is both angel and animal, both spirit and body. He is the lowest spirit and the highest body, the stupidest angel and the smartest animal, the low point of the hierarchy of minds and the high point of the hierarchy of bodies.

More accurately stated, man is not both angel and animal because he is neither angel nor animal; he is between angels and animals, a unique rung on the cosmic ladder.

But whichever way you say it, man must know angels to know himself, just as he must know animals to know himself, for he must know what he is, and he must know what he is not.

A free 80-minute lecture,"Aquinas and the Angels," by Peter Kreeft can be accessed here.

Comments

[Blake Helgoth]

I know that it is matter that differentiates one man from another, but can you tell me what it is that differentiates the angels? I used to know, but I have forgotten. It came up when talking to my son about the Trinity.

[Blake Helgoth]

More specifics on my previous post: I do know that the angels differ in genus, that is, each angle is its own genus. Thus, the angels are as different from each other as an ant from an elephant. However, I am still hazy on what it is that makes them different. St. Thomas seems to say something about their powers causing their difference, but I know I read a clearer explanation from him somewhere, I just can't remember where. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Sharon]

The idea of a guardian angel , not angels per se, is about the only Church teaching with which I have a problem. Of we all have a guardian angel where was it when all of those children were abused?

[Mark Brumley]

Apparently, they were unable to prevent the abuse.

While I understand the problem that gives rise to the question, I think the complexities of the relationship between the spiritual and material dimensions of reality are so great that it is hard to give simple answers to questions such as this. Very hard, especially if specifics are sought.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Or why do good things happen to bad people? Why do good things happen at all? We can give general answers but we can't always see how the general answers apply in specific situations.

Certainly, if guardian angels (or even God's providence) intervened always to prevent bad things from happening, the world of volitional cause and effect would cease. how could I even think bad thoughts, as C.S. Lewis noted in Miracles?

Does that mean any and every bad thing must be allowed to happen? No. But why some bad things are prevented and others permitted to happen is mysterious.

It is true that God allows bad things to happen in order that some good comes to exist that otherwise would not exist (such as you and I, who certainly would not exist right now if God never allowed bad things to happen). But why that good should be permitted to come to be at the cost of evil occuring when another good would have been had evil not been allowed to happen is mysterious.

Theologians speak of greater good coming to be as a result of God allowing evil to happen. We can suppose that if this is true, as I think it is, that when all is said and done in history we shall see why things were allowed to be as they were and we shall all acknowledge the wisdom and goodness of it. But it is hard to see that now. It takes great faith, hope and love.

[kelly]

Here is my little angel story. In 2004 I gave birth to a son with Down syndrome. He did not learn to speak at the same rate as typical children and at the age of about 14 months we began teaching him sign language. We started with a video called "Signing Times" that featured rudimentary words, many of them the signs for common animals and toys.

It just so happened that for many months, when I rocked my son to sleep each night he would gaze up at his ceiling and his eyes would slowly wander across his sightline as though he was watching something leisurly moving around. I used to joke and say "tell your friend good night". Sometimes it unnerved me as he seemed to be watching something so intently.

After a few weeks of the sign language I finally asked him what he was looking at in the dimness of his nighttime bedroom. He made two signs.
"Bird" and "doll".

I had always suspected that angels rejoiced in my son's arrival to us. Now I really knew.

[K.]

This is a wonderful article. Thank you.

To Blake Helgoth: Our Lord is Truth, Mercy and Love. Their protection is given to God! *Always* are we in God's protection and care. Remember what Christ said on the cross "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." (St. Luke 23:34) Some of the most horrifying things that happen will still *always* be triumphed through God's love and mercy. During some of the most tumultuous times in our lives was it when God had us closer than ever before. CS Lewis said "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

To Mark Brumley: What an incredible story!!!!! It reminds me of a story a friend told me a few years ago. She wrote a song about her friend's daughter. The baby girl had a medical condition which meant she was in great pain. However, her mother didn't understand because her baby girl smiled constantly and was always in very high spirits. Especially when she was alone in her crib at night, and would be singing and cooing and looking around the ceiling, just like you described, as if following something. The doctor told her there was simply no other explanation than that her baby was constantly surrounded and protected by the angels.

[K.]

I'm sorry, I followed the names incorrectly in my above response.
Corrected:

This is a wonderful article. Thank you.

To Sharon: Our Lord is Truth, Mercy and Love. Their protection is given to God! *Always* are we in God's protection and care. Remember what Christ said on the cross "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." (St. Luke 23:34) Some of the most horrifying things that happen will still *always* be triumphed through God's love and mercy. During some of the most tumultuous times in our lives was it when God had us closer than ever before. CS Lewis said "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

To Kelly: What an incredible story!!!!! It reminds me of a story a friend told me a few years ago. She wrote a song about her friend's daughter. The baby girl had a medical condition which meant she was in great pain. However, her mother didn't understand because her baby girl smiled constantly and was always in very high spirits. Especially when she was alone in her crib at night, and would be singing and cooing and looking around the ceiling, just like you described, as if following something. The doctor told her there was simply no other explanation than that her baby was constantly surrounded and protected by the angels.