Most of you know that I was married and a permanent deacon before going to the seminary and becoming a priest. When my wife, Cynthia, was a patient at MD Anderson Cancer Hospital a few years ago, the nun who founded the chaplain program there, Sister Alice Potts, came daily to minister to her. Over the years Sr. Alice developed the practice of giving away small angels to her patients. In return her patients would give Sr. Alice more angels as gifts, which Sister would later hand out to even more patients. Her office was full of these angel gifts. One day Sr. Alice brought to Cynthia’s room a television crew that was doing a story on Sr. Alice. They were filming Sr. Alice’s visit to one of her patients. From her hospital bed Cynthia was recorded telling her, “Sister, this is a beautiful thing you are doing. Angels are very important to God and people. Nobody is afraid of angels. God sends angels to people who need God, but are afraid of God, because angels are much less intimidating to those whose faith is weak.”
The fact that we have guardian angels is taught in the Bible. We just heard Jesus tell his disciples, speaking of little children,
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones,
for I say to you that their angels in heaven
always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.” Mt 18:10
There are two lessons here for us. First, that we all have guardian angels; even little children have guardian angels; and, second, that those angels have a mission to fulfill here on earth. In Hebrews we read,
“Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them, who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?” Heb 1:14
The Church has long taught the intercessory powers of angels and saints as a sign of God’s love for us. St. Jerome commented, “… how great the dignity of the soul, since each one from his birth has an angel commissioned to guard it.”
Mt 18:1-5, 10