There is something remarkable about the angels. Since everything we naturally know comes to us through our senses, these beings that we cannot see, hear, touch, taste or smell are mysterious. We cannot form an image of an angel or a demon in our mind, and neither renaissance artists nor Hollywood actors have ever truly been able to depict these non-bodied beings. It is impossible for us to comprehend a spirit the way we can comprehend a tree, a dog, or another human person because the angel is beyond us. This could restrict the spiritual realm of angels to the philosopher and theologian, yet this realm is not a mere metaphysical jungle-gym accessible only to the philosophically-inclined. Rather, because God has spoken to us and has elevated our nature we are called not just to speculate about the angels but even to enjoy fellowship with them. For our Lord tells the apostles, “you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51).

Before our Lord invited his apostles to see the angels, he had already spoken through angels under the Old Covenant. These messenger-spirits were among the partial and varied ways God spoke to his people. (Heb 1). For instance, “an angel appeared to [Moses] in the desert near Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush” (Acts 7:30), and likewise Isaiah saw a vision of angels worshiping God and singing “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!”(Is 6:3). In fact, scripture tells us that the entire Old Covenant was “transmitted by angels” (Acts 7:53), for angels served God as “his ministering spirits sent to serve, for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Heb 1:14). 

Yet our Lord’s invitation to see the angels exceeds anything human beings had experienced before. In the Old Covenant the angels were God’s messengers. But now that “the word became flesh ” (John 1:14), he has made it possible for us fleshly creatures to share life and friendship with the angels. God created the angels in grace like our first parents, and although some were permitted to fall, he brought many to glory as adopted sons. He adopted persons of human and angelic natures to share in his purpose (ST III, q.23, a.3, ad.2). So that in the end he can say to both St. Michael and St. Peter, “You are my adopted son.” 

In the coming days, the Church will celebrate the feasts of the Archangels and the Guardian Angels. We do not have these feasts in order simply to speculate about the nature of angels. Rather, on these great angelic feasts, we celebrate their life with God. We honor them because God’s love has given them a share in his divine life! This love has lifted up Sts. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and each of our guardian angels to let them peer into the essence of the hidden God and now they live in his sight as his friends. Through their intercession may we join them as brothers and sisters in eternity, and exclaim to God: “In the presence of the angels I sing to you, O Lord” (Ps 138:1).  

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Image: Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation