Do you believe in angels? How many angels do you think there are? As many as there are people in God’s world – which means billions!
Do you know the names of any of the angels? You know the names of the angels that you know, and in the Bible you will discover that there are only three angels who have names: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael.
Notice that each of those names ends with the letters ‘el’, the sign of the divine. Think of the whole of the Bible, Old and New Testament, and angels appear in a number of those books. Remember the Bible is a collection of books. No angel is mentioned by name in the whole of the Bible except Michael, Gabriel, Raphael.
Angels are male, female, LGBTQIA – just like the human race and all are unique in God’s love. In our prayer we refer to angels and saints and a saintis someone we agree standsoutforus as an inspiration. We all know of saints who inspire us. Angels areordinary and everyday.
You are an angel when somebody calls you one: “Be an angel, hold my hand.” “Thank you, my angel, for what you did for me.” “Thank you for just sitting here with me, reading for me. You are an angel.”
You see that all of us are angels and some of us are saints. It is a rich understanding of God’s love for each individual person and a call that God might make to particular people to do and be more than the ordinary saints and angels.
There are no bad angels. They can’t possibly exist because God cannot create anything that is bad. The angel is given to the child in the moment of conception, or even before as the prophet Jeremiah says so beautifully “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” What a wonderful understanding: to be in the mind of God from all eternity.
How beautiful we see is God’s love by making us all angels and encouraging some to become saints.
You may carry a hazy understanding of angels from vague memories of what you heard at school, in church, or from other members of your family and friends, but the wonderful truth is so simple: each of us is an angel and some of us are saints. In God’s love we can see each other.
We are angels and saints in God’s wonderful love.
Fr John
(15th Oct 2023)
Related Links: Popular Reads and Fr John’s Parish Newsletters
