“We really do have angels looking over our shoulders”
“We really do have angels looking over our shoulders”
At St. Benedict Orthodox Church we recently celebrated the feast of St. Michael and All Angels. It was a day dedicated to recognizing and honoring the faithful witness of St. Michael the Archangel and the angelic host who assist us in our spiritual journeys. Orthodox Christians remember the angelic hosts in all our services, but we also have several specific feast days during which time we give them particular acknowledgment and praise. They are not vague characters to us; we commemorate them precisely because we have specific knowledge of them and a specific relationship with them.
For example, angels are immaterial beings. Contrary to popular modern belief, angels are not former human beings, and human beings do not become angels at death. Angels are an entirely different part of God’s creation than are humans. Whereas humans participate in both the immaterial [some might say “spiritual”] and physical realms [and thus are soul & body], angels are purely immaterial or spiritual. Hence, they can be present without our seeing them. They have always been spiritual beings, and have always existed on a different plane from humans.
Angels were created to serve as God’s agents. In fact, the word “angel,” derived from the Greek word “aggelos,” means “messenger.” In the Scriptures we see numerous instances of angels bearing God’s message to humans, appearing on His behalf, or simply defending the faithful.
Scripture tells us that angels give spiritual guidance to the faithful. We see them speaking in dreams [to Joseph in Matt. 1:18-23] or directly [to Mary in Lk. 1:26-38] We believe that this still happens, though in the Orthodox Church, we recognize that the sinfulness of human beings sometimes necessitates that we submit such revelations to spiritual testing; we want to ensure that such revelations are truly from God and not the product of our own imaginations.
Angels offer divine protection. According to Psalm 91, they guard us from harm, and each human being has a guardian angel [Matt. 18:10]. The old cartoon image of the angel standing on the shoulder whispering into the ear is not far from the truth.
The angels pray for us. We have a prayer which reminds us of the intercessory work of the angels. It says, “Michael the archangel...here and everywhere, always entreat the Son of God for us.” Thus, it is not only other Christians, and the Saints, who pray for us, but the angelic hosts as well.
The angels come to greet the faithful who depart from this life [Lk. 16:22]. Thus, they are with us in death as well as in life. In the western Orthodox practice, the burial service includes a hymn which calls for the angelic hosts to greet the Christian dead: “Come forth to meet him, O ye angels of the Lord; receive his soul; present him in the sight of the Most High.”
Angels also worship God in heaven. The Bible offers numerous examples of angelic worship in heaven [Isaiah 6:1-4, Rev. 5:12], and specifically, we can identify them leading the singing of the Sanctus [”Holy, Holy, Holy”]. Thus, Orthodox liturgy prefaces or follows the Sanctus with a statement that we join the angelic chorus when we sing that hymn.
Finally, the angels serve in this capacity of their own volition. They are not automatons who can only do as they are instructed. In the ancient Jewish and Christian traditions, it was believed that the devil and evil spirits were angels who exercised their wills in rebellion against God. Thus they fell from divine grace and favor. Holy angels have will, and in spite of our failings, they will to work for and with us in order to see the accomplishment of God’s will in us. This is why we honor them in the Orthodox tradition. Though they are God’s servants, they are our comrades in arms in the spiritual life.