Angels at our side


TMEQuEEN'Sy/ORK
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Samuel Horine, S. J

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Imprimatur

:

+ Joannes J. Glennon

Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici

Sti. Ludovici. die 12, Januarii, 19.^7

Second edition, August 19.37

Any financial profit wade by
the Central Office of the Sodality

will be used for the advancement

of the Sodality movement and the
cause of Catholic Action.

Copyright, 1937

THE QUEEN’S WOPK, Inc.

DeaddM



Angels at Our Side
<< O ONE ever, I believe, bas met with

such an ovation as was given to me
today.”

Queen Victoria was scarcely exaggerat-
ing the glory of that day of diamond
jubilee. And yet, if her guardian angel
was not thinking of the sobering verses of
Kipling's “Recessional,” at least he must
have smiled a bit as he considered how
trivial was all this glitter and tinsel of the
glory of the queen whom he guarded on
earth compared with the real triumph in
which he himself had shared when his
Queen, Mary the Virgin, celebrated her
coronation in heaven.

Ah, there was a triumph indeed; there
an army whose power would not soon be
taxed to its feeble utmost to subdue a lit-
tle Boer rebellion. In the ranks of Prince
Michael there marched millions, and every
one of them perfect!

The mighty hosts of Xerxes and of
Genghis Khan; the still mightier hosts of
modern armies, with their gas, long-range
artillery, elusive submarines and far-flying
bombing planes—all these pale before the
wonder of the angelic hosts of Mary. For
these heavenly hosts are free of the inertia

of human mind and body—free from doubt
and the need of the slow processes of rea-
soning, free from need of heavy arms and

Each of Us

1



armor and all encumbrances of time and
space. These angelic hosts enter the con-
flict with the untrammeled power that is
theirs by right of their nature as pure

spirits and by right of their elevation by
grace to union with God in the Beatiflc
Vision.

And though we may not be conscious of
it, these heavenly knights are taking an
even more important part in our lives to-
day than our own tireless hearts.
This is no army of a past long dead in

all but memory. Nor is it of the transient
today, which fades as we grasp it; nor yet
of the vague tomorrow, slow to come,
quick to depart. This army is of the eternal
Now, ever at its peak of perfection. Un-
erring in intellect, unwearying in endeavor,
unhesitating in will, unfaltering in love,

what help and hope these warriors bring
to our earth, what a giant part they play
in our lives! For each of us has an angel
guardian ever at his side, aiding him with
a power limited only by the strange in-
gratitude and neglect which cause us to
rest content with* a great ignorance of this

wondrous gift of God. In spite of our
ignorance or unbelief his help is great; but

read of him, pray to him, listen to him,

and his power will manifest itself a thou-
sand times more efficaciously.

Babies?

For much of the power of our guardian
angel depends upon our ready recourse to
him, our prompt obedience to his counsel,

2



our firm confidence in his assistance.

Our ability to draw from this great source
of power will be small indeed if we think
of devotion to our angel as merely a little

haphazard addition to our spiritual diet.

Nor can you reach forth and grasp his
dynamic energy if you have learned to
look on prayer to the angels as a pleasant

diversion for some little-girl saint weary
of her dolls and jacks. If the image that
springs up in your mind at the word
“angel” is of a little pink baby with wings,
you won’t get far in releasing the heavenly

powers that God has sent to you. The
angels are not little; they have neither size
nor color nor wings, except in the symbolic

sense that they are not subject to the laws

of gravity. And least of all should you
think of as babies those creatures who,
long before all other armies existed, lived

and fought the great battle of the prehis-
toric past.

The Battle of Battles

Read, if you will, of the battles of the
ancient powers, battles of today and to-
morrow, battles for land, or wealth, or
power, but with all your reading don’t
forget the most surprising and important
combat of all, the battle of the angels,
good and bad, who have resumed on our
earth, with our souls the prize, the bitter

conflict whose first stage saw Lucifer bow
to Michael and fall ‘Tike lightning from
heaven.*’

“And there was a great battle in heaven;

Z



Michael and his angels fought with the
dragon, and the dragon fought and his
angels. And they prevailed not; neither
was their place found any more in heaven/’
And “God spared not the angels that sin-
ned, but delivered them, drawn down by
infernal ropes . . Or as Isaias writes:
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Luci-
fer, who didst rise in the morning? How
art thou fallen to earth that . . . saidst in

thy heart, ‘I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God ... I will be like the
Most High’?”

His Job

A gigantic battle; and, more than that, a
battle still continued and of the utmost
concern to us. For .Satan, driven from
heaven, now seeks to vent his hatred upon
us, God’s children, by destroying our souls.
If men only studied and learned more of
this unrelenting warfare between the good

and the fallen angels, who seek our souls,
they would lead far different lives. They
would tremble to accept offices and honors
which they now strive for but which might
place them in the proximate occasion of
falling under Satan’s cruel servitude.

And on the other hand they would show
the delightful confidence in the presence

of their guardians that Guy de Fontgal-
land, the saintly eleven-year-old French
boy, who has become so widely popular
since his death a few years ago, showed
when he said to his mother, “Why be
afraid? You’re forgetting that I have

4



Jesus in my heart and my guardian at my
side. And an angel guardian— Well, he
guards! He knows his job!”

Why do even good people like Guy’s
mother keep forgetting? Surely the ac-
tivity of the angels has a magnitude, an

importance, a suspense great enough to
capture and hold our attention. Satan has

been flung forever from heaven but is not
yet chained immovably in hell. In the
fleeting moment before the half-closed
gates clang forever shut, he roams the sur-
face of our globe stalking his prey.

To Our Defense

The test of the angels is over, and the
good angels who triumphed are rewarded,
among other ways, by being allowed to
assist us in our trial. The fallen spirits
are punished the more; for, by tempting
us, they only feed their devouring envy.

The heavy gate is closing, but in the mo-
ment given them the demons scour the
world with a ferocious hatred that sur-

passes the last desperate frenzy of a wild

animal being forced into a cage. But
whenever the cruel Satanic claws seek to
sink their poisoned points into our hearts,

there springs to our defense a white-

armored Michael to parry the blow.

The power and the wisdom of an angel
are remarkable reflections of God’s very
own and surpass anything that we can im-
agine. The Apostle John, at the end of
his long life, a life full of glorious sights

5



and graces given to no other man, was so
overcome by the beauty of an angel who
appeared to him that he knelt down to
adore. In like manner did Abraham err
in the vale of Mambre by taking an angel
for God.

A Matter of Power

We know of the dazzling angel who ap-
peared to Daniel and spoke with a voice
like the voice of a multitude. We read in
the Mass for the eighth of May that the
sea was convulsed and the earth trembled
when the Archangel Michael descended
from heaven. The ninetieth Psalm sings
triumphantly, **A thousand shall fall at
thy side, and ten thousand at thy right
hand, but it [evil] shall not come nigh
thee . . . For He hath given His angels
charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy

ways.” We recall that one angel slew
one hundred and eighty-five thousand As-
syrians in a single night. We remember
the greater task which was given the angel
who brought the last of the plagues to the
proud Pharaoh and in one night killed
“every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from

the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the
throne, unto the firstborn of the captive

woman that was in the prison, and all the
firstborn of cattle.”

But despite all these intelligible facts,

the power of a single angel rises far above

our human comprehension; much more does
the battle of the thousands around us sur-

pass our understanding.

6



But though, as long as this life lasts, our

knowledge will ever fall far short of the

reality, still we can by prayerful reflec-
tion learn much about the angels. They
are pure spirits and so are one step closer
to God than we, in that by their very
nature they have not, and need not, bodies.
They are neither large nor small; their
extension in space is not a matter of phys-

ical displacement but of power.

They Cannot Perish

In a way we are present in a place as
far as we can reach, be it by putting out an
arm to reach by touch or by lifting our
eyes to reach by sight. The presence of
the angels is measured by their power, and
this, as we have just seen, is great. To
recall but a few more lines of Scripture,
taken from the Apocalypse: “I saw four
angels standing on the four corners of the
earth, holding the four winds of the earth
. . . And the angel took the censer, and
filled it with the fire of the altar and cast
it on the earth, and there were thunders
and voices and lightnings, and a great
earthquake. . . . And the fourth angel
sounded the trumpet . . . and the third part
of the sun was smitten, and the third part
of the moon, and the third part of the
stars. . . . And I saw another mighty angel
come down from heaven, clothed with a
cloud, and a rainbow was on his head, and
his face was as the sun. . . . And he cried
with a loud voice as when a lion roareth.”

Little pink babies! Save for its use to



suggest angelic innocence, the idea of

angels resembling babies at all is grotes-

quely fanciful.

And as the power of the angels is great,
so is it ever at its full activity. As spirits,
they can never do anything by halves, but
give the full energy of their intellect and
will to every act. Nor do they learn as
man learns, for the angelic mind starts
with fullness of knowledge. But like
Christ, who grew *'in grace and age and
wisdom,” the angels can grow in experi-
mental knowledge, that is, they can apply

their infused knowledge to new objects.
And though they had a beginning, the
angels cannot perish nor be subject to our

laws of time.

Long Ago

The angel who is at your side now, as
you read this, was the same grand creature
in the dim ages of the past when our world
was young. And down through all the
intervening years, with his unwavering,

unwearying, intense interest and under-
standing and love, he has added to the
experimental knowledge that is at your
service today.

He smiled his love for you when God
commanded that Eve should awaken from
Adam’s side as Adam slept in the Garden
of Eden. Even before that, he had proved
faithful to God and flashed his sword in
Michael’s defense when Lucifer’s hosts re-
belled. With God, and in God, he saw the

8



gates of Eden swing shut behind the guilty
Adam. He saw the soul of Cain grow
black as the blood of Abel poured forth.

He prayed before the Throne of Light as
Noah’s ark rode the mountain-high waves
in the dark night of the flood. He watched
as the builders of the tower of Babel, of

the pyramids, of the great Jewish temples

were born, lived, and departed. Nightly,
with his brothers, he strewed the manna
in the desert for the wandering Jews; and
in later years, nightly, with his brothers,

he adored the true Bread of Life resting
in a thousand different tabernacles. Little

pink babies with wings? What hoary
patriarchal seer on earth ever had an ex-
perience that could compare with these?

And now, after all these hundreds, thou-
sands of years of patient preparation, he

has been assigned to you, his own most
special charge during the hour of your life
on earth. Even if he were no more gifted
than you, with a nature no better than
yours, still you would trust the constancy
and assurance which come from being tried
and found faithful; the wisdom which only
the experience of so many years with God
could give.

We Begin to Wonder

This gift of God is so stupendous, so
glorious! And yet we can go through life
ignoring it, looking on it as if it were a
dream or a mad fancy. The material world
around us is more dreamlike, a lesser

9



reality, since it is the more transient. The
joys of a dream are of little worth, because
they are gone the moment we wake up and
begin the more controlled life of the day.
And the joys of this worldly day are gone
the moment we meet death and begin the
immensely more conscious, longer endur-
ing life of heaven or hell. The acts of our
angel, the helps which he gives us, are in
the spiritual, the supernatural life, a life

of the most intense reality. Yet we treat
our guardian as a dream and fret about
the shadowy things of the material world
as though these were of greater value.

When we become conscious of the potent
gifts of our angel guardians, we begin to
wonder just how they use these powers in
helping us. Because of their intimate union

with God in the Beatific Vision, their
pleasure always rests in doing His will.

This they accomplish by guiding us along
the difficult but satisfying path of virtue.

The catechism of the Council of Trent
gives a pleasing comparison of the office

of our guardian angels with that of the

tutors whom parents of the time secured
for their children when they sent them on
a foreign journey.

“To angels is committed, by the provi-
aence of God, the office of guarding the

human race . . . For as parents, if their
children have occasion to travel a danger-

ous way infested by robbers, appoint per-
sons to guard and assist them in case of
attack, so has our Heavenly Father placed

angels over us in our journey to heaven.”

10



Divine Forethought

The loving forethought of the earthly
parent spending anxious hours in prayer

and planning as he chooses the guardian
to accompany his young child on a danger-
ous trip is not equal to the wisdom and
love of the Heavenly Father, who gives us
our angelic guides. Of course God could
have given us His help directly, but it is a

mark of greater goodness that He wishes
to share His powers of administration, as

well as His other gifts, with the creatures

He has made. And just as He has given
priests the power of being the visible ad-
ministrators of the infinite merits of Christ,

so has he ordained that the angels be the

invisible bearers of His graces.

Both the sacred Scriptures and the liv-
ing Church teach us that it is the joyous
task of our guardian angels to shield us

from corporal and spiritual dangers; to
encourage us in our spiritual progress; to

ward off the attacks of the evil spirits; to
offer our prayers, made more pleasing to
God by union with their own, to our com-
mon Father; to assist us in the hour of our
death and bear our souls to heaven.

How Talk to Them

Of all these duties the illumining of our
minds is the most direct and most constant
effort of their guardianship. The fact
that the human race is kept in mental
equilibrium St. Thomas ascribes to this
unceasing watchfulness of the good spirits.

11



A study of spiritism and demonology shows
that the surrendering of the mind to the
influence of the evil spirits is a short cut

both to insanity and turpitude. It is not
hard to understand, then, that the opposite
of this surrender to evil — a ready obedi-
ence to the prompting of our holy guardians
— is the surest way to wisdom as well as
sanctity. Because God implanted in our
very nature esteem for truth and virtue,
and because truth and virtue are in-
flnitely more desirable in themselves than
are their opposites—deceit and sin—it is
an unquestioned fact that if one but

thought of the right motives and under-
stood them clearly, one could easily over-
come every temptation.

Sin conquers us by getting us off guard,

by concealing its own offensive rottenness
with the alluring cloak of pleasure. Our
minds are so limited that when they are
preoccupied with the emotional delight

or humiliation accompanying an action,

they forget the deeper aspects of that ac-

tion such as God's viewpoint, the later

effects on ourselves, the great price we shall
pay for the enjoyment of a small pleasure,

the great loss we incur when we avoid a
passing pain.

It is the task of the good angels to sug-

gest these deeper aspects to us. And
hence the essential sanity of the human
race. But we can reject these suggestions;
and we so often do. And the guardian
angels, not knowing our secret thoughts

12



unless we reveal them, are hampered. The
most common means of confiding our
thoughts to them is through prayer. But
prayer is so often forgotten in the stress

of temptation. Hence the many sins and
miseries of our race.

The Perfect Home

For it is we, not our angels, who fail.
Enjoying the Beatific Vision, they already

have the gifts which we shall possess in
heaven, one of these gifts being continual

intense activity without weariness, without

the slightest disturbance of the perfect

repose brought by the love and possession
of God. There is no reason, then, for our

angel ever to weaken or waver in his
efforts in our confiict; rather there is every

reason why he should be constant. He
confirmed himself in constancy by his

fidelity at the time of the great trial,

when Lucifer fell. His burning love for
God spurs him on in our service, for God
has decreed that he should express this
love by helping us. His great devotion to

Mary his queen urges him on to help
us, her children. The sacred duty and the
keen pleasure of completing the triumph
over Satan will not permit him to look on
idly. The thrones left vacant by the rebel-
lion of that archfiend and his fellow de-
mons are not to remain vacant forever.
Empty places in the court of God? If any
retinue should be perfect, surely the

heavenly retinue should be so. Or, to
change the comparison, heaven is the per-

13



feet happy home. And what home is com-
plete whose table or fireside gapes with
an empty chair? No. There shall be no
unfrequented paths in the gardens of

paradise, no idle instruments in the
heavenly orchestra. The world will as-
suredly continue to exist until all the

places vacated by the fallen angels are
filled by human souls raised to that great
estate by God’s graces. And it is the con-
stant effort of our guardians to raise us to

one of those places within their own ranks.

The Object of Their Struggle

But the devils, filled with anger against
anything that God loves, hate us the more
because we are to occupy the thrones
which they lost. With intensified bitter-
ness they attempt, in every possible way,

to resist Michael and his followers. It is
a desperate battle that rages between Lu-

cifer’s renegades and the faithful cohorts of

Mary. On our own fields the surging
hordes of demons and angels do battle.
Our hearts are the citadels for which the
struggling hosts are contending. Even if
we were no more than mere unconcerned
spectators of this combat, its thrilling

magnitude and tireless intensity would
make us interested in learning all we
could about the personnel of the two
forces, their manner of offense, their
powers, their aims. But we are more than
spectators. Indeed, we are the very reason
of the struggle. Our will, our weak, vacil-
lating human will is the object of conten-

14



tion, like a fire whose flames are whipped
by a wind between two great mountains of
gunpowder. Our will is the releasing
cause, the small button which, turned to

the left or the right, lets loose the powers

of Satan or of Michael.

This thought of our wills being the

cause which puts greater than human
forces into irresistible motion is important

for a true appreciation of the place the

angels have in our lives. For, as the sacra-
ments are the door to the inflnite merits
of Christ, so our little wills can be the

“Open Sesame” to the great riches which
the mighty angels of heaven are given for
us. But should we rebel, our wills become
the hapless cause which, Pandora-like, un-

leash unto our own destruction the wild
hatred and wickedness of Satan.

Causes in the Moral Sphere

There is something very startling and
fascinating about the releasing of causes.

A man presses a button with the slightest
effort of his little Anger, and millions of
tons of water stored up in a huge reservoir
go crashing down the side of a mountain.
Stalin, sitting in an easy chair in some
hidden Russian home, signs his name to a
document, and soon a thousand commu-
nists are shouting on the steps of the

Capitol in Washington, a million pamphlets
are cluttering up the streets of every
borough of New York.

But perhaps the most fascinating thing

15



about causes released is that they can be
made to operate even in the moral sphere.
In the Herculean struggle between good
and evil, between Michael and Satan, we
have the awesome but thrilling power of
being the ones who can release their ener-
gies. We can picture the surprise and dis-
may of an angel who comes from God
laden with potent graces, only to be met
by a stubborn human will which says no.
And if the little human will says no, the
answer to those potent graces is no. We
can also see Satan, so like a roaring lion

made more fierce and clever by centuries
of battle, ready to tear to shreds the beau-

tiful robe of sanctifying grace, only to find

that he is stopped in midair, so to speak,

by some little school girl’s “No, I think
not.” The answer to these evil energies,
then, is no. Against all the powerful in-

tensity of a pure spirit, against all the

malice of the eternally damned, against all
the accumulated experience of centuries,

against all his confidence born of millions

of conflicts won, the answer to his sugges-
tions still remains, “No, I think not.”

Ignatius of Loyola

The bad angels as well as the good
angels have a nature superior to ours. The
good angels have learned much during the
centuries of the progress of this world; so

have the devils. But in the affairs of this

world the power and knowledge of the

good angels are mainly potential factors,

awaiting the command and permission of

16



human wills. A temptation comes ; we
decide lightly with a yes or a no. The
pleasure or pain that results from the de-

cision is experienced and quickly forgotten.
But our yes or no is a releasing cause
far greater than the shot fired at Con-

cord, for its sounds are heard and its ef-
fects felt, not only around the world, but
in the depths of hell and on the topmost
heights of heaven.

Which seems to raise the question of the
discernment of spirits. For if we are going
to release a mighty flood of energies, we
want to know ahead of time whether it is
to be the golden flood of grace or the black

flood of sin. St. Ignatius of Loyola, who,

for all his poetic idealism, was of a scientific
turn of mind, spent much time and effort
analyzing the methods of the spirits, good
and bad, who sought to rule his heart. More-
over, he had a deep devotion to the angels
and their queen and in high degree the
gift of prayer. So his comments on the dis-
cernment of spirits are of very great value.

One learns from him that it is common
for the devil to hamper holy people in their
practice of virtue by filling their minds with
specious doubts and disturbing sophistries,

thus driving from their hearts the true joy
and spiritual gladness given them by God
and the good angels.

The Test-Tube Age

But even without the authority of Ignatius
we could guess that a demon coming from

17



hell, where there is neither hope nor love,
would spread distrust, unrest, error, fear,
despair and hatred, and sow discord and
strife between man and man in family, state,
and nation and between nations; whereas
the good angels bring hope, trust, love,
peaceful union and most satisfying friend-
ships.

Knowing this, one has but to glance cas-
ually at any daily paper to realize that
Satan is very active today. We must not
forget that the widespread materialistic, in-

dependent, selfish, nationalistic spirit of the

day is fertile soil for Satanic seeds. For
man’s morbid tendency to rest content with
physical delights and endeavors reduces him
to a level where his spiritual vision is lost,
the loving suggestions of his guardian un-

heard or unheeded, and his soul perilously

exposed to the unleashed malice of Satan.

When materialistic science was enthroned,
it became of a sudden very unpopular to
believe in anything which could not be an-

alyzed in a test-tube or made to serve the
physical comfort of man. Because they are

spirits and of heaven, the good angels found

themselves banished from the daily lives of

men so engrossed in the lesser life of the
mind and body that they forgot or denied
the existence of the soul. It is only within

recent times, with the utter collapse of the

attempt of materialistic science to bring

peace and happiness, that people began to

weary of following these windy pied pipers

into dank caves and began to emerge again

into the sunlight of the spirit, to waken once

18



more to the glory of the Mystical Body, the
love of the Virgin Mother, the friendship

of the angels.

The Return

This emergence has been slow. Satan is
not going to let us turn to the light of God
without a struggle. The seers of materialism
are forever indulging in a disturbing and
meaningless howl. The venom of the Protes-
tant tradition of minimizing all that is most
consoling in our faith still runs in our blood

and makes us sluggish, whereas the quality
of our gifts should naturally make us surge
forward with very joy.

And even when we think we have been
weaned away from evil, and we crave the
spiritual, Satan would still attempt to win
us by a false spiritism. He would pass
himself off as an angel of light or as a

departed fellow soul. He would substitute
inane, even immoral, messages and empty
tablerappings for the real participation in

the knowledge and love and power of God
which our guardian angels offer. And the
depths of our blindness is shown by the
fact that Satan often succeeds in thus de-

ceiving us; that people slow to pray to their

guardians will accept the impostures and

deceits of spiritualists and devils.

And as we have been fooled by material-
ism and spiritism, so have we been en-
trapped by the other trends of our age: The
so-called independence of spirit which boasts
of freedom and democracy but which is so
easily perverted into independence of divine

authority and carries us into slavery — the
19



slavery of the dictatorship of pagan states
and the slavery of sin; the selfishness which
makes us slaves of our lower selves; the
nationalism which not only does not add to
our inherited patriotism but defiles it with

hatred for other countries; the strange

logic of the communist, who claims that
because a half-hearted love of God brought
us but half of the peace on earth He in-
tended for us, even that half-hearted love

should be abandoned instead of perfected
—all these deceptions Satan has carefully
fostered through the years. He will use
them now to their utmost for our destruc-
tion. He is clever and he will not miss
any opportunity.

The lifelong hatred of Rome that was Han-
nibars pales into insignificance beside the

implacable hatred of men that is Satan's.
The vile deceit of lago, which led to the
horrible downfall of the noble Othello, was
but an hour’s joke compared to the un-
wavering insidiousness of Satan’s intrigues

against us.

Satan’s Power

It is good, when we have so bitter an
enemy, to recognize his activity and not to

expect to overcome him without a studied
struggle aided by fervent prayer. But it is

bad to credit Satan with more power than
he actually has. His actual power is terrible

enough; to forget his limitations would lead

us to despair.

It is true that the devils hate us because

they see us occupying the thrones which

they have lost. It is true that this hatred

20



is always unabating because it is based on

their eternal hatred of God. It is true that

Peter tells us that Satan goes about like

a roaring lion seeking whom he may de-
vour, and that those who sin are Satan’s
true slaves. St. Paul calls him the “god
of this world,” and Christ refers to him" as'
“prince of this world.” It is true that origi-

nal sin brought us under Satan’s sway. But
we find his power greatly curtailed or even
completely futile when we use the graces
which our Redeemer won for us.

It is not in an idle gesture that the Church
blesses palms on the Sunday before Easter.
It is a token of Christ’s triumph over the

prince of death. No longer is Satan the
powerful one of pre-Christian days. Nor is
he with us always by special appointment

and command as is cur guardian, but only
at times and with permission, and with

definite limitations set by God. Therefore,
while we can safely let our love and trust
in our guardians grow greater every day of
our lives—and we should do all we can to
foster this growth—we should not let our
fear of Satan become unbounded.

Danger Reversed

Our first American-born saint, St. Rose of
Lima, found herself frequently harassed by

the assaults of the devil. He was permitted
to strike and illtreat her, but Rose laughed
at his attacks and drove him from her by
calling on Christ to help her. She would
even defy Satan, bidding him torment her
body as much as God permitted. “As for
my soul,” she said, “you cannot harm it;

21



it is under the protection of my divine
Spouse.”

This attitude is quite in keeping with the

instructions of St. Ignatius, who writes, “It
is the nature of our enemy to become power-
less and to lose courage when the person
shows a dauntless front to his temptations,
acting in a way diametrically opposed to
them. On the other hand, if the person
commences to fear and to lose courage in
sustaining temptation, there is no beast so
fierce on the face of the earth as the enemy
of our human nature in prosecuting with
intense malice his wicked designs.”

So, while we must recognize Satan's
power and be on the watch and place our
trust in Christ and our guardian, we must
not let fear of him disturb our peace and
good judgment. It was an exaggerated idea
of his power that led the medieval witch-
baiters to deplorable excesses of cruelty.

The danger today is reversed. Today we
forget his existence altogether and so for-

get to guard against him. Although our

guardian has advantages that Satan does

not possess, our good angel's task is not

an easy one. There are a thousand varieties

of mortal sin, and, if Satan fools us into

any one of them, we are his slaves. Our
guardian angel must be one thousand per-

fect; even if he wins against Satan nine

hundred and ninety-nine times, he has failed.

Failed for us, that is; but not failed en-

tirely. The nine hundred and ninety-nine

successful times have all been gains for the



world at large. In the combined results
achieved by the whole army of guardians,
we see a most consoling and impressive
sight. Each angel guides his charge faith-
fully day and night, year after year. In

the course of only one lifetime, then, in-

numerable sins are avoided. Consider how
many more sins have been kept at bay by
the guardian angels of any group, let us
say the students of one Catholic school. And
then multiply this number of guardian
angels until they embrace all who live in
the world today and all their ancestors, and
we see our golden avalanche of grace. Our
world is disturbed, blundering, wicked. But

consider how much worse it would be if
all the men who play important parts in
its history did not have their guardians to
restrain, as far as possible, their evil im-

pulses.

Today

When we examine the world today, we
are inclined at first to pessimism. We see
the Church ignored or persecuted in so many
lands. Russia, Spain, France, Italy, Mexico,

and all these countries where the Church
seemed strongest, have seen it suffer both
contempt and persecution within the last

century. Where, then, are the angels? Where
is their power, their eager and intelligent

defense of us their wards? Is Satan turn-

ing the tide of battle after all, bringing con-

fusion into the ranks of Michael?

How blind we are! Deny it as we will,
we are still thinking of the angels as being
little pink babies with wings, or at least as

23



men with bodies. But they are spirits, pure
spirits, and they fight for the spirit primar-
ily. Sufferings, contradictions, humiliations

are among the greatest gifts that can be
given our souls during itheir earthly sojourn.

The prayerful study of the life of Christ,
of the Virgin Mary, of any of the saints,
will show us how much more effectively and
surely sorrow sanctifies than pleasure. The
reasons for this are not hard to discover,

but it is not our place to discuss them here;
the recalling of the fact suffices. God would
allow all the grand cathedrals in the world

to be destroyed if thus one act of love or

contrition would be made. For buildings
are material, the act is spiritual. Size, color,

texture, all these mean nothing to a spirit.
Spirits have a supreme disregard for mate-
rial things except in so far as these material

things are used as means for advancement
in spiritual growth. The angels are spirits,
pure spirits. Individuals, yes, with personal

loves and aversions, with individual wills

and intellects, but spirits still. And when we
would judge the success of Michael or Satan,

we must judge according to spiritual stand-
ards. If sorrow sanctifies—and sorrow is
more common than pleasure — assuredly
Michael still has the upper hand.

And yet the sad truth is that what the
angels have accomplished for us is but a

small part of the good which God intended
that they do and which they are so eager

to do if we would only let them. What must
we do to gain the full benefit of this won-
derful privilege of having a guardian?

24



Inspirations

We must seek to develop a consciousness
of his abiding presence, of his eagerness to

use his great powers in our behalf. It will

take time and effort to develop this con-

sciousness, as it does to develop any habit
of mind, but prayer and the appropriate

reading will suggest many means. The
Church offers help by mentioning the angels
frequently in her prayers. And in memory
of the divine command to Moses, to fashion
two cherubim of beaten gold to stand at

either side of the Ark of the Covenant, the
Church has in her sanctuaries statues of
the angels to remind us of their presence.
Then, too, as she has dedicated May of each
year and Saturday of each week to foster
devotion to the Queen of Angels, so has she
set aside October of each year and Tuesday
of each week as times of special devotion
to the angels themselves. Some prayer or
practice at these times, in union with the

whole Church, will remind us of the con-
soling doctrine of the Communion of Saints,
and will also foster in us devotion to our
guardians.

If we come to look upon our good thoughts
as inspirations from our angel, we shall be
more ready to carry them out. If we look
upon our trials as salutary punishments
brought by our wise guardian to help us in
our struggle against sin and its conse-
quences, we shall accept these trials more
joyously and to greater gain.
That our angels do inspire and chastise

us we know certainly. You probably know

25



the story of the dramatic appearance of the
angel on Hadrian’s tomb during the pontifi-
cal reign of Gregory the Great. At that
time Rome was stricken with a terrible
pestilence. After having ordered penitential

exercises, the Pope led a procession to the
Church of St. Mary Major and took from
there the picture of Our Lady. While litanies
were sung, the picture was carried devoutly
through the city. The sick became well, the
air cleared, the pestilence left the city. As
the procession passed the tomb of Hadrian,
an angel was seen on its summit sheathing
his sword, while an invisible choir sang the

beautiful canticle “Regina Coeli, laetare!

Alleluia.

In Time of Need

The example of the saints, perhaps espe-
cially of those saints who, like St. Frances

of Rome, often found their guardians visibly
present in time of great need, will suggest

to us ways of increasing our devotion to
our angels. We learn that the saints re-
membered their guardians frequently,
thanked them often, trusted them unre-
servedly, loved them fervently. It is this
consciousness of his delightful presence, this

facility in remembering to call on him
promptly for help in moments of stress, this
assurance of the efficacious power of his

response that makes our guardian the tower
of strength that God intends him to be.
Faithfulness in addressing some daily
prayer to him helps us to remember his
presence; reading about his nature or about

the help which the saints have received

26



from their guardians increases our confi-

dence; speaking to him in lonely and
troubled hours with childlike trustfulness

is an effective means of obtaining and re-
taining and enjoying his friendship.

Throughout Life

Many a little child reared by a good
Catholic mother has gained, by means of a
prayer to his angel, courage to await sleep

peacefully in the terrifying darkness which
has descended upon the physical world
about him. And if his growth in faith keeps
pace with his growth in age, how often in
adolescent years he turns to this same, now
familiar friend when he feels the awakening
of passion in his flesh. And often, in the
prime of life, having dispersed the phantoms
and fears of the world and of the flesh, he
turns to his angel, with still deeper con-

fidence, for help in the more bitter com-
bat against the devil, who carries the war
into his very soul. And toward the end of
life, when the world is drifting away from
him, when his body is relaxing in death,
when, perhaps, even the devil is unable to

penetrate the awful aloneness that must
come just before death, his guardian angel
is still at hand, prayerfully expectant, wait-

ing to guide the liberated soul on its won-

derful long-desired journey to the divine

judge and heaven. It is in the lonely hours

that mark every stage of life that the soul
can best come to know its guardian friend.
Once his presence is known and his power
felt, it takes but a fleeting thought and a
brief prayer to gain his ready assistance.

27



even in the midst of the greatest distrac-
tions and activities. There is no doubt that
as the years bring us closer to that final

bitter conflict between the Church and
Satan, the need of devotion to our guardian
angels becomes increasingly manifest.

The prophetic chapters of Daniel ac-
curately describe the powerful, blasphemous
domination of Satan and his followers over
the earth in these latter days. Involuntarily

we shudder when we think of the hapless
lot of mortals who have ignored their good
angels and think to repulse with their own
unaided weakness the deadly intrigues of
a spirit whose nature so far surpasses theirs.
Even a casual perusal of St. John’s Apoca-
lypse will convince us that the last days will

find the angels, good and bad, taking a more
eager, a more visible, a more powerful part
in our activities in preparation for Christ’s

second coming.

The Supreme Exemplar

But have you ever really meditated on the

angelic activity mentioned in the gospel

story of Christ’s first coming? When the
time arrived for Christ to be born, God sent
Gabriel to Zachary to announce that Eliza-

beth would bear a son, John the Baptist,
who would be Christ’s precursor; six
months later Gabriel came to Mary to win
her memorable fiat. An angel came to re-
lieve Joseph’s fears, telling him that Mary
had conceived of the Holy Ghost. Angels

called the shepherds to come and adore at
the crib. Soon after that an angel warned

28



Joseph to flee into Egypt. We do not know
what angelic visitations may have come to
Christ during the thirty years of His hidden

life; but we know that after His temptation
at the beginning of His public life and after

His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, an
angel came to minister to Him. An angel
announced the Ascension to the holy women,
and after the Ascension angels appeared to

the Apostles and told them to wait and pray
for the coming of the Holy Ghost.

Christ is our divine exemplar. He lived
on earth that we might have a perfect model
by which to guide our actions. The highest
endeavors of thousands of the noblest souls

the earth has seen since His coming have
been to imitate His manner of action, His
habits of thought. Knowing this, we look
upon the study of the angels with a new
eagerness. Seldom were they far from the
thoughts of Christ.

During an hour of rest, when little chil-
dren were flocking around Him, He said to
the Apostles present, “He that shall scandal-
ize one of these little ones that believe in

me, it were better for him that a millstone
should be hanged about his neck and that
he should be drowned in the depth of the
sea . . . See that you despise not one of

these little ones, for I say to you that their

angels in heaven always see the face of
my Father who is in heaven.” And in the
stress of the Passion, when Judas has just
betrayed Him, and Peter rashly thinks to

protect Him with a too-ready sword. He

29



says, “Thinkest thou that I cannot ask nay

Father, and He will give me presently more
than twelve legions of angels?”

Forgetful of Malice?

We learn that the activities of Satan too
are ever in His thoughts: “Simon, Simon,

behold Satan hath desired to have you, that
he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed
for thee, that thy faith fail not.” And again:
“This is the hour of the prince of darkness;”

and, “The prince of this world is already
judged;” and, “Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out.”

Christ’s work was to redeem us from the
slavery of Satan and his minions, to win
for us the grace necessary to gain the empty
places among the nine choirs of angels who
are God’s courtiers in the heavenly kingdom.

Would He, then, easily forget either the
malice of the fallen angels or the virtues

of the faithful ones? He loved the holy
angels because He knew that they were the
masterpieces of His Father’s handiwork,

faithful mirrors of the divine perfections;

He loved them because He knew the burn-
ing love and loyalty that every angel ren-

dered to His mother. Queen of Angels.

If we would be Christlike, if we would
gain more of the wonderful vision and
strength that were His, we must remember
the angels more frequently. Can you imagine
that the thoughtful Christ, who, even in

His hour of agony on the cross, so gener-

ously responded to the faith of Dismas,

would neglect ^o show gratitude to the

30



angels who ministered to Him? Yet how
seldom do we thank our guardian angel for
the innumerable favors he undoubtedly does

for us!

If we let our faith grow cold, if we thank
our guardian but rarely, few will be the
favors that we shall receive from him. But
if we preserve a thankful heart toward him,
we shall find that angelic help grows stead-
ily more manifest. And it is such growth in
the appreciation of spiritual things that is

one of the most precious fruits of devotion
to the angels.

A Cultivated Friendship

A burning, lively faith should not be a
novelty nor so difficult of appreciation to

those who live in the grace of God. We
who each Christmas see a helpless Babe
lying in the straw and kneel in adoration
with the Magi; we who on Good Friday
see Christ bound, hustled from place to
place in apparent helplessness, scourged

and nailed to the cross, and see through
all this confusing exterior to the God
within it; we who so often kneel at the
altar rail and receive Him under (what
could be more surprising?) the form of a
little wafer of unleavened bread which
brings such untold strength into our souls
— we indeed learned long ago that the
eyes of the body are blind to spiritual
things. But we have learned, too, that
the eyes of the soul, through faith, discern

supernatural truths with even greater cer-

31



titude than the eyes of the body discern
physical truths.

Our need for a lively faith grows deeper
every day. In many of us faith is a
wretchedly weak shadow of what it should
really be, a very vague shadow, when we
realize that even the saints could not pene-

trate the distances which were so clear to
Christ. Even the best bodily eyes are sadly
limited in their own sphere of activity, the
material world. Is it then to be wondered at
that our soul, in its fallen state, is some-

what cut off from the vision of spiritual
things? But we should not merely wonder;
we should admit our shortcoming and try
as much as we can to develop and strengthen
our faith. And what more appealing and
effective way presents itself for this end
than the cultivating of friendship for our

angel?

Close to Us

A ready recourse to our guardian angel
tones up our whole spiritual life. We
shall grow to realize that he is very much
alive and active, a thousand times more
so than ourselves. If we but remove the
obstacles of indifference and doubt, the
fruits of his activity will enrich our life

with an abundance of glorious graces. We
must not be discouraged by the mislead-
ing idea that the angels are vague, distant

beings; that it takes too much study to
know enough about them to gain their
help.

It is true, though, that the more we

32



read about and study them, the more
powerfully we shall be aided by them, be-
cause our prayer to them will grow more
confident. Every prayer, however humble
and halting, will reach them; and prayer

to them is not hard. We merely have to
say, “Dear angel, whom our loving Father
has sent to guard me, please gain me light
and strength to be pleasing to Him,” and
the common actions of our lives are raised
to a higher plane. We have but to say,
“Dear angel, help me,” and temptations
which enslaved us before are weakened.
We have but to say, “Loving friend, sent
by my thoughtful queen, be loyal to her
and to me,” and hours which threatened to
be lonely or fearful or profitless promise

endless fruit and merit.

The Splendor to Come

If we constantly remember our guar-
dian’s presence, our lives will be lifted to

the highest endeavors. He is such an
obviously splendid token of God’s assisting

presence that doubt and discouragement
will vanish as quickly from our hearts as
they fied from the hearts of the soldiers of
France when Joan of Arc stepped to the
head of their long-despairing ranks. All
the glory that was hers, all the confidence,
the love, the heroic service that she won
as she miraculously blazed a path of vic-

tory across the fields of France, she won
because she was so obviously a messenger
from God. When they saw her “Jesus-
Mary” banner waving before them, the

33



soldiers knew that the all-powerful God
had espoused their cause, and nothing
could daunt them. Thus we too have a
messenger from Jesus and Mary, a mes-
senger even more glorious than the re-
splendent Joan astride her white charger,
a messenger more surely proving that
God has assumed our cause as His own.
And our guardian's Tabor will not fade

rapidly into Calvary as did Joan’s, not if

we do not wish it. His is a help and
friendship that can grow more powerful
with each passing day. And more; if we
grow to know and love him now, we are
beginning a friendship that will stretch

into eternity. These pure spirits are most

remarkable manifestations of the infinite
glory of God. We know of the splendor
that will bless our bodies after the day of

judgment, the splendor of the Resurrection

with its gift of light, more bright and
swift and subtle than the light radiating
from the sun, penetrating all substances as
readily as the sun’s rays penetrate the

purest crystal; a splendor, glorious, spirit-

ualized, impassible, immortal! If the

splendor of the Resurrection will be an

endless source of joy to us in heaven, how
much more will the brilliant beauty of the
angels ravish us with delight!

Through Them

And though by nature they are above
us, still we shall be lifted up by grace to
a plane enabling us to feel entirely at home
in their exalted company. One of our race

34



is their great queen; the saints will be

among the highest of their choirs, filling
the thrones vacated by the fallen angels,

even the throne of Lucifer; and all of us,
rejoicing in the glory brought to our in-

ferior human nature by the God-Man
Christ, shall exult in a perfect and fitting
and eternally glorious companionship with
these angelic hosts.

But there is a crowning gem that will be
ours through devotion to the angels. Just

as any increase in love of Mary brings a
corresponding spontaneous increase in love

of Jesus—since all of Mary's virtue is but
a finite refiection of the infinite lovable-

ness that is His—so an increase of esteem
and love for the angels necessarily brings
a proportional increase of esteem and love
for their queen, Mary, who reigns supreme
over them.

Do we desire to win Him? How better
than by loving her who is His mother and
His chief delight? Do we desire to please
her? How more effectively than by de-
votion to our guardians? For Mary is deeply
and justly proud of every one of the
soldiers in her loyal angelic army.

35



PRAYER TO OUR GUARDIAN ANGEL

Dear Angel, loyal guardian sent by God,
I place myself wholeheartedly within
thy sheltering arms.

God is with you. Like Mary our Mother,
like the Blessed Sacrament, you are an-
other expression and reminder of His
love for me—a personal, constant, lov-
ing expression of it.

You are here to keep my soul attuned to
the supernatural life around me, lest I
be engulfed in and discouraged by the
unsatisfying things of sense.

You are here to expose the wiles of Satan
and the other spirits of evil who, to mock
God, seek to destroy my soul.

You are here to bring me much needed
grace, to teach me of the activity of the
Holy Spirit, of love for your queen, my
Mother, of the glory of the way of the
cross, of the peace of the way of virtue,
of hope in the merits of Christ, of joy in
all the personal favors which God has
granted me.

You are my oldest friend, bringing me
celestial strength and wisdom and love.
Your solicitous service surpasses a thou-
sandfold all earthly strength and wis-
dom and love. And you have served me
every moment since my birth, and you
will always serve me until my soul
stands before God for its judgment.

Knowing this, beloved guardian, I cannot
help but entrust myself unreservedly, de-
votedly to you. It is my duty and my
dearest pleasure. I surrender myself,
body and soul, to your loving care. Keep
me, guard me, guide me, teach me, love
me as your own.

36



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