Homily for Thursday, 2 October 2014– Memorial of the Guardian Angels

Thursday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Job 19:21-27; Psalm 27:7-8a, 8b-9abc, 13-14; Matthew 18:1-5, 10

This second feast of angels in just a few days, that of the Guardian Angels, may again raise in us these kinds of questions: Who are angels? What is the purpose of angels? Are angels real or are they mythical creatures to which some people hold an outdated or childish belief (have any of us been asked this question)? And why do we have two celebrations of angels in the Church just days apart, first the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, and then today the Guardian Angels?

The word “angel” means messenger, and so the angels are God’s messengers. We might find Jesus’ reference to angels in our Gospel reading today to be interesting. Jesus responds to his own disciples’ question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” by placing a child from the crowd among them. The most humble; those who trust God as a child trusts her or his parents are “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says. But then Jesus leaves his disciples with this saying: children’s “angels in heaven always look on the face of my heavenly Father.”

Are not the angels in this way like two-way messengers for those who trust in God as a child does its parents and all those who care for her or him; for the humble? On the one hand, guardian angels act as messengers from us to God; as intercessors for us to God. On the other hand, these angels reflect God’s glory to us who trust in God. We will pray to God at the beginning of our Eucharistic Prayer today: “For the honor we pay the angelic creatures… redounds to your own surpassing glory, and by their great dignity and splendor you show how infinitely great you are.”

And so these guardian angels; these two-way messengers both show our dignity as God’s creatures before God and reflect to us God’s greatness. Our belief in angels, then, is not some outdated belief. And not only are there the big-name Archangels like Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael for the bigger jobs, but each of us has a guardian angel for the smaller everyday task of bringing our humble prayers to God and showing us God’s greatness and care for us. Jesus asks us to trust in God’s greatness and care for each of us in the way children do; children whose “angels in heaven always look on the face of [our] heavenly Father.”