Pastors Keyboard: This last week, on October 2, was the feast day of the guardian angels. Sadly, today many people either don’t know, don’t care, or don’t believe that they have a guardian angel. Yet scripture is very clear on this. We all have a guardian angel assigned to us. St. Thomas tells us that each guardian angel is only assigned to one person, they are pure Spirits. A guardian angel describes their function not their being. They are Pure Spirits made by God assigned to everyone to help us know, love, and to serve the Lord. Though we rarely get the chance to see them, they always see and hear us.  They are not passive in our lives. They strive to encourage us in our relationship with the Lord and discourage us from all that would take us away from Him.

Several Saints got to see and hear their guardian angels, and they built beautiful relationships with them. I used to think this was only for saints like St. Padre Pio, but it really is for all of us.  Not that all of us will have the great privilege of seeing and hearing our guardian angel, but we do have the ability to talk to them. We can ask for their intercession. They want to have a relationship with us that will lead to a friendship that will aid us in growing in Holiness and Love of the Lord.  I find that the more aware I am of my guardian angel, the more I want his (though, as a pure Spirit, they are not male or female angels) help and to make him proud by avoiding the bad and seeking the good.  It’s a friendship that enables us, like Tobit in the Old Testament or Mary in the New Testament, to be guided to a deeper relationship with the Lord and to a faith that grows!

Your brother and father in Christ,

Fr. Scott