Christian Angels
Angels are represented throughout the Catholic Bible as intermediary spiritual beings, forever travelling between God and man. As St Augustine and St Gregory explained, ‘angel‘ is the name of the `office’ and it expresses neither their essential nature nor their essential function. This means that angels are the attendants of God’s throne in the court of Heaven. The function of the angelic host is to act as assistants to God and more than once the seven angels of the Presence are described.
Catholics are very clear about angels being God’s instrument of communication. In Jacob’s vision, angels are witnessed ascending and descending to Heaven. An angel of God found Agar in the wilderness and angels drew Lot out of Sodom; an angel announces to Gideon that he is to save his people. An angel announces Samson’s birth and the Archangel Gabriel instructs Daniel, although he is not called an angel in either of these passages, but ‘the man Gabriel’.
The same messenger announces the birth of St John the Baptist and the incarnation of the Redeemer, while tradition says that he is the messenger of shepherds and the angel who strengthens Jesus on the cross. The prophet Zachariah gives the revelation that the angel is speaking in him; this is an important point because it clearly defines the angelic guidance as coming from within and not an outside vision speaking to him.
Throughout the Bible, it is repeatedly implied that each individual soul has a tutelary angel; this is a point of faith to many Catholics. Catholic doctrine also dictates that our guardian angel can intercede with God on our behalf.
St Ambrose said: ‘We should pray to the angels who were given to us as our guardians.’ Catholics have a hierarchy of angels — Cherubim feature in the Bible, as do the Seraphim. Archangels are mentioned only in St Jude, but St Paul gives lists of other heavenly groups. He tells us in Ephes. 1: 21 that Christ is raised up ‘above all principality, and power, and virtue, and dominion’, and in Colossians 1:16 he says: ‘In Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or principalities and powers.’
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