Friday – 26th Week in Ordinary Time – A – Memorial of the Guardian Angels

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, peace be with you. Today, we celebrate the wonderful feast of those companions that God has given to us in the spiritual realm, who accompany us through this world, so as to bring us safely and soundly to the next. But we must heed the grace that is their presence in our lives. And so this homily will focus on our beautiful guardian angels, the gifts that God has given to each and every one of us.

In today's first reading on their memorial from the book of Exodus, we hear, “Thus says the Lord, See, I am sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way, and bring you to the place I have prepared. Be attentive to him, and heed his voice” (Exodus 23:20–21).

My brothers and sisters, the Lord has given to each one of us a guardian angel to guide us, to speak to us. And he does so many incredible things for us, which we'll get into a bit later.

Saint Gemma Galgani, for example, great saint and mystic, once said, “Jesus has not left me alone. He makes my guardian angel stay with me always.” And she also said, “My guardian angel began to be my master and guide.”

She began to see him visibly. What a great grace.

For the majority of us, however, we cannot see our guardian angel. We cannot hear his voice as you are hearing my voice right now. And that is because the Lord continues to ask us to do something very special. And that is to walk by faith until we see him and all the angels and saints in the world to come.

But for now, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). “Blessed are those who believe without seeing” (John 20:29).

But then there's also another reason, and that is because the angel is not flesh and bone as we are, but spirit, spirit that cannot be seen, but a spirit that nevertheless is even more perfect than that which is visible.

The Catechism in article 330 says that the angels, and I quote, “surpass in perfection all visible creatures.”

In today's gospel, for example, Jesus warns his disciples about greatness and humility. And for both of them, he uses angels to drive the point home.

And this is the gospel in its entirety, because it's short.

“The disciples approach Jesus and said, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a child over, placed it in the midst, and said, ‘Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me. See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father’” (Matthew 18:1–5, 10).

Now, my brothers and sisters, if we were able to just stop and reflect on the full meaning, the full impact of the words that Jesus is trying to convey here, when he says that “their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father” (Matthew 18:10), we don't realize how much of a privilege that is.

Let me illustrate it to you through a story that I heard from an exorcist.

An exorcist who, among the many, many exorcisms he has been involved in throughout his ministry, one day had Satan himself, Lucifer himself, as the possessing demon. In other words, Lucifer had possessed this person. But Lucifer succumbs to the power that is the name of Christ.

And so the exorcist, because he knows that the beauty of God is one of Lucifer's greatest tortures, and in order to expel him from that person, his victim, he commanded Lucifer in the name of Jesus to describe how beautiful God is.

And after fighting and speaking all kinds of vulgarities and rebelling and saying he would never obey the priest, in the name of Jesus, he commanded him. And Lucifer, with a whimper, said to the priest, “I would scale a large and tall pillar, full of razor blades, a thousand times over, if I could look upon the face of God just once.”

In other words, one of his greatest tortures is that he cannot look upon the face of God, and yet your guardian angel, my guardian angel, everybody's guardian angel, “always look upon the face of my heavenly Father” (Matthew 18:10).

My brothers and sisters, that means the being accompanying you is not just some cute little cherub. Your guardian angel possesses an intellect, of vastly exceeding human intellectual ability. He has no fatigue. He can never be distracted. He can never forget things. He has no bodily limitation as we do.

And because the holy angels have definitively chosen God, there's no possibility of them sinning. This is what makes your guardian angel great and astonishing the most.

And this is why they are so happy with our Blessed Mother being their queen. And why they reverence her. Because she is an eternal and treasured icon of sinlessness. They can so associate and have an affinity with her.

My dearest brothers and sisters, in Article 336 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church we perhaps have the most beautiful line of all regarding the teaching on the angels. I quote, “From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession.”

So drawing together from Scripture, the Catechism and classical theology, we can reasonably describe our guardian angel's ministry with us, his loving acceptance to accompany us throughout our lives, in this way.

His ministry involves interceding for you before God, protecting you according to providence, helping restrain demonic influence over your life, encouraging good inspirations, assisting you in prayer, helping your intellect recognize what is good, prompting remembrance of spiritual truths, helping you resist temptation, protecting you from dangers when God wills, encouraging repentance after sin, helping lead you toward your vocation, your beautiful vocation that God gives you, accompanying your pilgrimage toward death.

But above everything else, he is meant to help lead you toward eternal life.

My brothers and sisters, this angel as great as he is, never desires attention for himself. But rather he always directs our attention to God, our Lord Jesus, our Blessed Mother, the saints, other angels who help us to truth, virtue, the sacraments, prayer, charity, repentance, never to himself, because their greatness is found in their humility.

May Almighty God bless you now and forever through your most holy guardian angel.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.