In the crises and sorrows of our lives one of the first questions we ask is, will someone be there, will anyone help to support us? In my own life this has become almost the definition of God: the One who is there. Not just in crises, of course, but always. And yet it is most difficult to believe that God is there if there is not another human being there as well. Perhaps it is the weakness of my faith, but it is so hard to believe that God is here with me if there is no one else besides. When others stand with us and beside us, God shines forth in our midst. So maybe God keeps coming to us in the form of those “angels” who look like human beings.
What is the greatest gift our Lord has given us? The gift of Himself. He offers us the perfect gift of love. Why? Because He loves us and wants to draw us closer to Him. He really wants to give us that gift, sometimes more than we really want it. But, since you are all here, I imagine you all want His gift. Unfortunately, we have people in our lives who don’t seem to want it. They go off the reservation. They turn their backs on everything their parents did for them and sacrificed for them. It breaks your heart. But, you pray and sacrifice for them anyway, don’t you?
We are supposed to pray constantly. Saint Peter said that the devil is always prowling about seeking the ruin of souls. What do we pray for? A lot of times when we pray, we pray too small. We pray for those who do not like us. We do not pray that they will have a heart attack or suffer any other kind of injury. Instead, you pray that their souls may be converted or that you may have the strength to not choke the living you-know-what out of them when they are around. We pray for a lot of good things. The ultimate good thing is eternal salvation. This is the eternal good we should pray for…both for ourselves and others.
What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. We are human and not angels, so it is frustrating when we don’t see the results of our prayers right away. We like things immediately. Even the coffee maker isn’t fast enough for us. Remember the televisions that we had to wait on to warm up? Can you imagine that now? When we do not see the results of our prayers right away, we think they are not working. We give God a hard time, because we want what we pray for today. However, God’s ways are not our ways. He tells us to never be discouraged by prayer. Maybe God said “No.” If so, it is probably good that He did, because instead of giving us what we ask for, He gives us a greater good.
Always say a prayer for yourself and your own salvation and another prayer for the salvation of others, especially your family. It may take years and years to see any results from your prayers, and you may get more grey hair and worry lines. You may get fed up and write them off, and that may be necessary if they have other problems. But still pray for their salvation. God never gives up. You never know what He has in store, so do not get discouraged when praying for family and friends. One of the side effects of prayer is that it changes us. We develop a deeper trust and resignation to the will of God. In today’s Gospel, people said “the child is dead” so do not bother. They gave up. But, Jesus said, “If I gave you these small things which are not the best, why would I not give you the big things if you ask for it?”
You never know what God will do, and I’ll give you several examples. One is Saint Monica and her son, Saint Augustine. Saint Monica never gave up on Saint Augustine, and he did a lot of crazy things. He couldn’t write about it very well, and his confessions were boring as heck. He’d put you right to sleep. Still, he did a lot. Then, you have my own family. My oldest brother and evil twin brother moved away from the faith, but they both received last rites and entrance into Heaven. Who knew? Through prayer…my mother’s prayers, my father’s prayers, and my prayers, I was able to do their funeral Mass. Another example is one that I remember quite clearly. I was at Presbyterian Hospital in the Oncology Unit, and I had three patients on my list to see…two on the left and one on the right. I thought, I’ll go see the patient on the right first. So, I went into the room and introduced myself as the Catholic chaplain for the hospital. The patient’s husband said, “Father, my wife is dying. Will you give her the Last Rites?” So, I gave her the Last Rites. I anointed her and right where the ritual states “at or near the moment of death,” the woman took her last breath and died. I looked at the nurse who shrugged her shoulders. So, I said, “Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God, the almighty Father, who created you.” When I came out of the elevator that day, something had told me to take a right turn instead of a left. I had not seen these people before that day or after. Another time when I was at Atrium, I was walking up the stairs, more steps for my heart, and a nurse asked me if I was a priest. I said “Yeah.” Go figure, huh? Actually, I’m the pastor at a Baptist church, and I’m just trying to confuse everybody. Anyway, the nurse said she was going to call me about a patient in ICU who was dying of cancer. I never saw the patient before and I never saw her after. Saint John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, had the gift of reading souls. One day while he was taking a walk, he saw a woman who approached him. She said, “Curate, you have the gift of seeing souls.” Sometimes. “Remember my husband? He is dead.” Saint John said, ”Yes. I’ll offer him a prayer.” The woman said, “He fell off a bridge and drowned. He was an evil man. He’s in hell isn’t he?” Saint John said, “I don’t know.” The woman was irate and said, “You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know! He hit me, he spent money, and he drank!” Finally, after she had finished unloading all her vile on him, Saint John said, “There was a lot of time from when he left the bridge and until he hit the water.”
Imperfect contrition is the fear of God’s punishment and is sufficient to get you into purgatory and eventually into Heaven. Even saying “I’m sorry” is enough. So, we do not know what will happen. We will find that out only if we get to heaven. Remember, we have control over that. Everyone in hell is a self-made man or woman. I’m not sexist. So, keep up your prayers for all of those who need His love. That’s the way to love.
Now, I am not much. I’m not that bright, but I can read a calendar, so I know my sell-by date is rapidly approaching. I pray for a happy death and that God will allow me in heaven with all my sins and faults. I pray that I will see the rest of my family. So, never, ever, ever stop praying. We never know how it will end. Remember, God wants your family, friends, and enemies in Heaven more than even you do.
How will you apply this message to your life? No matter what, keep praying for yourself and your salvation and the salvation of your family, friends, and enemies.
You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to https://annunciationcatholicalbemarle.com/ and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.” From a cell phone, click on “Blog” then “Menu” and then “Categories” (located at the end of page). There is also a search box if you are looking for a specific topic.
“Infinite grief I wish from My creature in two ways: in one way, through her sorrow for her own sins, which she has committed against Me her Creator; in the other way, through her sorrow for the sins which she sees her neighbors commit against Me. Of such as these, inasmuch as they have infinite desire, that is, are joined to Me by an affection of love, and therefore grieve when they offend Me, or see Me offended, their every pain, whether spiritual or corporeal, from wherever it may come, receives infinite merit, and satisfies for a guilt which deserved an infinite penalty, although their works are finite and done in finite time; but, inasmuch as they possess the virtue of desire, and sustain their suffering with desire, and contrition, and infinite displeasure against their guilt, their pain is held worthy. Paul explained this when he said: If I had the tongues of angels, and if I knew the things of the future and gave my body to be burned, and have not love, it would be worth nothing to me. The glorious Apostle thus shows that finite works are not valid, either as punishment or recompense, without the condiment of the affection of love.”— St. Catherine of Siena, p. 4
Our final destiny as sons and daughters of God is bound up with that of the angels. Our world is full of their presence and activity. That is why we ought to know foundational truths about them.
Anything that we know about angels outside of Sacred Scripture is taken from the Church Fathers and Doctors (some of whom were privileged to interact with angels) as well as from the lives of the saints.
Here are twenty-five facts you may not know about God’s holy angels.
1. Angels aren’t male or female.
They are purely spiritual beings. Since they do not have material bodies, they are neither male nor female. However: since the dawn of time, angels have chosen to present themselves in masculine form, likely in honor of God, who has revealed Himself as Father, and God the Son, who became man for our sake. Opus Sanctorum Angelorum reminds us that “Even when they are not explicitly called men, [angels] appear as magnificent, intimidating, and powerful persons—qualities that we associate normally with masculinity.”
Therefore, out of respect, we refer to all angels as “he.”
2. Angels have an intellect and a will, just like us.
Unlike us, angels have made their permanent choice to serve God and—now that they see God face to face—can never sin.
3. God created the vast number and hierarchy of angels in a single instant.
Angels weren’t born. They were made.
4. The angels are ordered into nine “choirs” and are ranked according to their natural intelligence, which vastly exceeds human intelligence.
There is a real angelic hierarchy. Some angels have greater knowledge than others; each choir of angels has unique roles.
5. The angel who was originally created with the highest natural intelligence is Lucifer (Satan).
Lucifer was created good and is believed to have been in the first set of angelic choirs—the choir of Cherubim. He then chose to reject God. “Non serviam!” (“I will not serve!”) is his cry of rebellion.
6. Each individual angel has its own unique essence and is therefore a distinct species, as different from one another as trees, cows, and bees.
No two angels are the same. Their uniqueness is another reflection of the creativity and glory of God.
7. Angels have personalities that differ from one another, just as humans do.
Angels are persons. Each has a unique personality.
8. Angels are infused with a perfect knowledge of all created things, including human nature.
We are not mysteries to the angels. They know far more about us than we do ourselves!
9. Angels cannot predict the future.
Angels do not know particular events that will occur in history, unless God wills that knowledge for a particular angel.
10. Angels do not know what graces God will give to certain humans; they can only infer it by observing the effects.
They are excellent observers, by the way.
11. Each angel was created for a specific task or mission.
They received instantaneous knowledge of this mission at the moment of their creation.
12. At the moment of their creation angels freely chose whether to accept or reject their mission, a choice forever locked into their will without remorse.
The fact that the angels were given one opportunity to make a choice with everlasting consequences may seem strangely unjust to us. But this is a misplaced compassion, arising from misunderstanding.
Our own human experience of thinking—with our mental processing, struggle to collect necessary information, uncertainty of consequence, and regret for negative results—is a foreign experience to the angels. Angels do not struggle to reason through a situation. “The human intellectual process is one of trial and error,” writes Fr. Horgan in his book His Angels at Our Side. “The angels don’t have to go through this process. With them, there are no trials because there are no errors…”
When Satan and his companions made their choice, for example, they were not suffering from lack of understanding, bad education, interior wounds inflicted by others, or an intellect darkened by human sin. They were created in perfection, lacking nothing. They were gifted with perfect knowledge and understanding and “knew better”—and made an evil decision anyway. Fallen angels have no desire to repent of what they have done.
13. Each human being from the moment of their conception has a Guardian Angel assigned to them by God to lead them to salvation.
Furthermore, your guardian angel freely chose to accept you into their charge.
14. Human beings do not become angels when they die.
Instead, the saints in heaven will take the positions of the fallen angels who forfeited their place in heaven.
15. Angels communicate with one another by passing concepts from mind to mind.
The higher-intelligenced angels can share their knowledge with angels from the lower choirs.
16. Angels don’t have emotions in the same way that we do.
However, they do experience intense movements in their will that are similar to human emotions.
17. Angels are far more active in the life of humans than we realize.
So are demons—which is why we need to stay close to the Sacraments, maintain a consistent prayer life, and foster devotion to our guardian angels.
18. God determines when and how angels can communicate with humans.
The angels rejoice to obey Him.
19. Good angels help us to act in accord with our created nature as rational human beings.
Fallen angels do the opposite. They want us to act against our nature as rational human beings. They love irrationality.
20. Angels don’t move from location to location.
Angels do not move as we “move” as we do, since they are not material beings with material boundaries and limitations. Rather than physically running from place to place, as we must, they are present wherever their will is acting. Their presence, then, can be instantaneous.
21. Angels can prompt and guide the thoughts of humans.
However, they cannot violate our free will.
The Archangel Michael reaching to free souls from Purgatory, by Jacopo Vignali, 17th century
22. Angels can take information from your memory and bring an image into your mind in order to influence you.
Remember that they would only do this in accordance with God’s will. He would have a particular reason for allowing this—and it’s not going to happen every day.
23. Good angels bring to mind imagery that helps us do the right thing according to God’s will.
Fallen angels do the opposite. They try to bring images to our minds that dissuade us from God’s will.
24. The degree and kind of temptation from fallen angels is determined by God according to what is necessary for our salvation.
And as the Bible tells us, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
25. Angels don’t know what is happening in your intellect and will, but they can surmise it by watching our reactions, behavior, etc.
St. Thomas and St. Augustine tell us that angels can “sometimes with the greatest faculty learn man’s dispositions, not only when expressed by speech, but even when conceived in thought, when the soul expresses them by certain signs in the body.”
Conclusion
Scripture tells us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1) and suggests that we may be unaware of how angels are interacting with us at times (Heb. 13:2). Knowing these few facts about the angels and how they work can help us be more aware of their influence over our lives.
Although we will never fully comprehend angels in this life, the teaching provided by the Church, Sacred Scripture, and the encounters of the saints has given us much to contemplate.
“I urge you with all the strength of my soul to approach the Eucharistic Table as often as possible. Feed on this Bread of the Angels from which you will draw the strength to fight inner struggles.”— Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati
“Sometimes, the Angels Come for Us Before the Sun Rises“
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
January 25 – 26, 2020
Scripture: Matthew 4:12-23
During my formative years, I was blessed with good parents, priests, and sisters who passed on the gift of Faith. The patrimony of the Church…the heritage…the gift they had been given, they passed on to me. Part of that heritage is the great treasury of prayers of the Church…centuries and centuries worth. While we were getting those lessons in school, they knew what they were doing; we were getting Godly prayers. We had to memorize them like most things, but that’s how I learned the classic prayers of the Church, and they all have beautiful points.
We must repent of our sins in order to be followers of Christ, because He is the Savior. If we have no sins, we don’t need a Savior, and we don’t need Christ. So, we repent of our sins, and we acknowledge them. There is a beautiful prayer that I was taught by my parents and by the priests that is a classic – the Act of Contrition prayer. I was taught to say it every night before I went to bed, just in case the angels came before the sun rose:
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You,
and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven,
and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend You, my God,
Who are all good and deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace,
to confess my sins, to do penance,
and to amend my life. Amen.
We say the Act of Contrition prayer every Sunday during Faith Formation so that our students will learn it along with other common prayers. But, learning prayers is not just rote memorization. There are so many beautiful things about the Act of Contrition prayer…it contains so much. In that prayer, is a small summary of what I studied in theology for a semester…it’s sort of like the Reader’s Digest version of theology. It is a primer for the Sacrament of Penance and teaches us how to receive God’s grace and become one with Him, and, how we show repentance and sorrow for our sins. It’s in the first part of the prayer: “I am heartily sorry for having offended You, and I detest all my sins….because they offend You, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love.” I am sorry, because I have offended God who is the source of all love. That is perfect contrition.
The next line in the Act of Contrition prayer refers to imperfect contrition: “because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell.” We are sorry because we may be cut off from God forever – we are afraid of going to hell. Hell is the separation from God forever.
There are two conditions that must be present for absolution from sin:
First, we must have contrition (sorrow) for our sins. “I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to confess my sins….” We have to admit what we’ve done. We must say where we need God’s help and admit that we are sinners. For example, you cannot go before a judge, any judge, and just throw yourself on the mercy of the court. You have to say what you have done. You cannot just say, “I’m sorry, Mom.” What the heck did you do now! You have to say what you are sorry for. When you go to the doctor and say, “Doctor, I’m not feeling well, so give me some narcotics.” Uh, no, that’s not happening. You have to tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it…so I can apply a remedy to your problem. I’m not giving you anti-cancer meds if you have a headache; I’m not giving you morphine if you have a hangnail. I have to know what’s wrong. Likewise, we have to admit that which we need forgiveness. Another example is when you get caught by the cops speeding… women get away with this all the time by turning on the tear machine…except for highway patrolmen, they don’t care..they write a lot of tickets. But, you are sorry, because you got caught. That is imperfect contrition. However, it is sufficient for the Sacrament…it’s good enough.
We have to avoid what we call in theology the “near occasion of sin.” Unfortunately, we cannot avoid them all. The biggest cage for sin is in the brain. It’s tough to avoid sin, because the devil is working all around us. We can try to avoid people, places and things that can lead us to sin, but if you stay in the barbershop long enough, you’re going to get a haircut.
People come to confession, “Bless me Father for I have sinned; it has been however long since my last confession.” I’ve been hearing confessions for 36 years, so, sometimes, you just know what to ask. Are you living with your girlfriend/boyfriend? “Yeah.” Well, I can’t give you absolution. “Why not?” Unless you are living like brother and sister, which I doubt…call me jaded, you are living in a state of mortal sin. It would be a sacrilege on your part and a sacrilege on mine if I gave you absolution. “Father, I have a problem watching bad movies on T.V.” Well, football or the Golf channel are options. I like watching it, but sometimes I have to turn down the volume because it just goes too fast for me.
The other condition needed for absolution is making amends. We have to make amends, an amendment of life, for our sins. Christ makes that amendment for us to God. We cannot fix it ourselves…Christ fixes that for us. However, we have to fix what we’ve done here in what we call the temporal order. For instance, if you steal my portion of Mexican food…”Father, I stole your pizza.” I forgive you, but you have to give the pizza back. You cannot just run off with my pizza. By the way, I would have given it to you if you had only asked. If you break a window while playing football, you have to replace the window unless the homeowner says it’s okay and they will fix it. You have to repair what you damage. You cannot just say, “Father I stole a $100.” Okay, but you have to give it back. “Really?” Yeah, you do. You cannot profit from your sin. If you stole my Stromboli, and you say, “I’m sorry,” well, you still have to give back my Stromboli. If I scrape your car, I have to make it right…as much as I can. We need to repay, give back, and try to right the wrong.
One thing about prayer…if we rush through our prayers, get distracted, or our mind wanders, just bring it back. My French ancestors in Canada, who we called “Kanooks”, said the rosary like greased lightning. I mean, when they said the rosary, there was smoke coming from the beads. For us, prayers may be coming from our mouth, but our mind is somewhere around the block. That’s alright, just bring it all back. We are men not angels.
We have such treasures as a part of our Catholic Faith, especially in its prayers. In the Act of Contrition prayer, we are saying that we have committed sin and we are sorry. We love God, and will try to avoid the irritations of sin, and try to right all the things we’ve done wrong. That is a great expression of your love for God and a great expression of your need for God. So, I would ask you to say the Act of Contrition prayer tonight before you go to bed. What a wonderful way to end the day; because, sometimes, the angels will come for us before the sun rises.
How will you apply this message to your life? Will you say the Act of Contrition prayer before bed? Will you repay, give back, and try to right any wrongs you’ve committed?
