Guardian Angels, Part 2

Last week we discussed guardian angels. The Catholic Church teaches this: “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him (or her) to life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 336).

Only recently have I learned about this Church teaching on guardian angels. I always thought it was a quaint tradition, embodied best by Clarence Oddbody AS2 (Angel 2nd Class), the angel who is sent to help George Bailey in the Christmas movie classic, It’s a Wonderful Life.  

Even though Clarence is an extremely lovable character, the movie gets a lot of things wrong. First, in the movie Clarence explains that he was a human being on earth, and then after he died he became an angel. Wrong! Angels are angels and people are people, and there’s no jumping back and forth between the two. God created angels as spiritual beings but with no bodies. The animals on earth have physical bodies but no spirit. (So, if you were expecting to be reunited in Heaven with your pet gerbil, Skippy, um, sorry.) Finally, human beings are a hybrid, having both bodies and spirits. 

Whenever you are at a wake or funeral and hear someone say, “Well, we’ve lost dear old Mildred, but Heaven has gained an angel,” be aware that that statement could not be more theologically incorrect. If anything, Heaven has gained a saint, but dear old Mildred has not transformed into an angel. However, prudence and common sense dictate that instead of correcting someone’s theological comments right there in the funeral home or church, it’s best to nod and politely smile, and then say prayers for both dear old Mildred and the off-base commenter.

According to Church teaching, each one of us was assigned a guardian angel from the moment we first existed. This means guardian angels are not sent to us only after we’ve misplaced $8,000 and in despair contemplate jumping off a bridge into an icy river on Christmas Eve. The Church teaches that our guardian angel is there to protect us and lead us to life. Since eternal life is far more important than our brief time here on earth, we can assume guardian angels are more concerned with our souls than our bodies.

This might explain why some faithful people get into terrible accidents. Maybe the guardian angel on duty was not so much concerned with preventing a car crash than with getting the person’s soul right with God. Having one’s life cut short by a few decades is tragic — don’t get me wrong — but dying in your 40s and spending eternity in Heaven is infinitely better than, say, living to age 109 and then spending eternity in Hell. 

In the Bible, the appearance of an angel is always accompanied by the announcement, “Fear not!” From this we can presume that angels are terrifying to behold. Maybe they are large and majestic and intimidating, or maybe they are no larger than Danny DeVito. But either way, since they are supernatural spirits, if we actually could see them it surely would freak us out. So, I suppose it’s a good thing our guardian angel is hidden from our vision, since the angel would spend most of its time reviving us after we repeatedly passed out. On the other hand, if we actually could see our guardian angel, we probably would not do 90-percent of the stupid things we do each day. 

We know from Scripture that one-third of all angels rebelled against God, way back before human beings were created. The rebellion was led by the prideful angel, Satan. Those rebellious angels are now demons. Presumably our guardian angels were chosen from the two-thirds that stayed loyal to God. But I wonder if Satan assigns each of us a guardian demon? Yikes, could it be possible that the silly old cartoon image — a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other, each trying to influence our behavior — is actually correct theology? 

The one thing we know for sure is that the power of God and His angels is far superior to the power of Satan and his demons. We need to remember two things: 1) we are most definitely in the middle of a spiritual battle (the evening news report each day bears witness to this); and 2) if we stick close to the Lord and let our guardian angels assist us, we will be victorious.

And if you think your guardian angel looks like Clarence Oddbody (or even Danny DeVito) you are probably wrong. I’m envisioning my angel as more like Conan the Barbarian wielding a big ol’ Star Wars light saber.