on Angels

[reprinted from my old LiveJournal: Feb. 22, 2008]

I have always felt a little guilty about believing in angels. They are like something out of a fairy-story – like Ents, or Hobbits. There is no evidence whatsoever of their existence in the Real World of the scientists. Rational men and women should have laid such fantasies aside by the age of nine or ten, along with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Nonetheless, if we are to give the slightest credence to Holy Scripture, the words of our Lord Jesus, and the universal testimony of the church (well, almost universal; many liberal clergy and professors of theology do not believe in angels any more than they do in the Resurrection), angels are as much a part of this Real World as trees and elephants and bumblebees.

It is as if Gandalf were to show up for supper, knocking on our front door with his staff, a dozen dwarves in tow.

"The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls 'angels' is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition." (Catholic Catechism, paragraph 328).

What are angels like?

We have evidence from Scripture, which I will leave for the reader to explore. My mental image of them owes much to Tolkien. The author Poul Anderson and his wife Karen noted in an essay that many of JRRT's species – dwarves, orcs, trolls, for example – are stock figures of northern European folklore. But not his elves; JRRT's elves are quite different from the sidhe. The Andersons suggested that instead, they are like angels.

I think of Glorfindel at the ford, shining like a flame of fire, or Galadriel, wise and strong and true, seeing into the darkness even while the darkness could not penetrate the light of the Golden Wood, and all the while capable of being as merry as a child. Or the company of elves with which Frodo and Sam dine while leaving the Shire. Or Legolas, sturdy friend and companion in good times and bad. I can imagine that angels could be like this.

I can also believe that angels can be like Fëanor of old, falling from brightest light and skill into pride. For Lucifer is an angel, one of the mightiest, and it was not Lucifer alone who fell into darkness.


How do angels help us?

Guardian angels? So the catechism says (paragraph 336, with a half-dozen Scriptural citations in support). I am less confident of this than I am of the more general presence and work of angels in the economy of God's providence to us, and perhaps to others of God's creatures. But it could be true. It is hard to explain several occurrences in my past without resorting either to “what some call chance” or the action of God, directly or mediated through an angel.

It is well to not rely overmuch on a guardian angel: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” as our Savior said when presented with Psalm 91's promise that “he shall give his angels charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” We should not expect unlimited protection when the Lord of all the heavenly host, who could have called ten thousand angels to his rescue, was nailed to the cross. No angel helped him that day. No angel can do for us those things which are given us to do. They can strengthen us with hidden graces, as they helped our Lord in the desert and at Gethsemane. But they cannot bear our cross, or his.


The catechism reminded me of another way, one that is so obvious that I had forgotten it, and perhaps more important than all the rest:

They help us sing.

“Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts....”

Our poor efforts at song are riddled with mistakes and missed opportunities. They are never sufficiently rehearsed; they never live up to what the song ought to be. But we human singers and instrumentalists are not the only ones in the choir loft, or the congregation, or the orchestral stage, or the opera house, or gatherings of Celtic or bluegrass or jazz musicians, or any other place where there is effort to offer a song that is true. There is more to the song than what we can hear.

Ye holy angels bright,
who wait at God's right hand,
or through the realms of light
fly at your Lord's command,
assist our song,
for else the theme
too high doth seem
for mortal tongue.
(Richard Baxter)

Grown-up, rational men and women must recognize that there are Things out there for which scientific evidence cannot account. Some of these Things are even more wonderful than all the angels of heaven and all of the songs, ours and theirs – the presence of God in the church and in the Blessed Sacrament; the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting; the Son seated at the right hand of the Father; Our Lady and all the saints around the throne; the promise that we will one day join them.

Soli Deo gloria.