I don’t know if I told this one before: My sister met a missionary once who felt called to minister to the tribes of Burma. Burma was then, as now, pretty much a closed country and foreigners were not welcome–especially foreign missionaries. This fellow would cross the border through the jungle and try to meet up with the nomadic tribes and share the gospel with them before going back to safety across the border.
One time he was caught by the local militia and thrown into a well in the middle of an abandoned village to starve to death. He knelt there in the mud–a modern Jeremiah–wondering how he would ever get out. He called for help for hours and no one replied.
The next morning he looked up to see a man in a white linen suit looking over the edge of the well. He spoke to him in English and asked if he could help. The missionary was surprised to see the man lower a rope and haul him up. The white suited man with the British accent took him to the trail that led back across the border to safety and wished him well.
In subsequent visits across the border, and in the border towns he looked for the strange Britisher. He never found him, and furthermore, the border guards had never seen such a character, nor had anyone in the Burmese jungle ever heard of him.
The nagging question is, if we all have guardian angels, why do we still have accidents and hurt ourselves? Well, first of all, the angels are limited in how much they can help if we do dumb stuff. Why should an angel save our skin if we’ve been drinking too much and fall down the stairs? Secondly, maybe they do save us more than we know, but the fact that we didn’t have that accident, did look up in time to see that oncoming bus, and did stop the car in time meant we didn’t have the accident, therefore we don’t know that the guardian angels saved us.
Still, there remains the question of why bad things still happen–especially to children. We don’t know. There are so many complicated factors in any one event that we perceive as an accident. We don’t know the powers of the evil ones on the other side, we don’t know what human evil is behind ‘accidents’. Perhaps there is only so much that our guardian angels can do, after all, they are not omnipotent, and even they cannot over-ride the human will.
I just heard a discussion of guardian angles on the radio this morning….must be a conspiracy of guardian angles.(not Angles, but Angels)Speaking of which, I really liked ‘Wings of Desire’ a German movie about guardian angels. (I don’t want to give away the plot) I hope it’s not snooty to say ‘Wings’ was better than the U.S. remake ‘City Of Angels.’
I have had angels visit me during my life…and people have commented to me that I have been an angel to them, not just the “sweet and nice thing” but exactly what they had been praying for in a particular situation…if that makes sense.I venture to guess that it is my Guardian Angel who they are seeing when they perceive me to be an angel, for I know I am not one.The best angel to come to me was when I was waiting for our van to be repaired at the dealership – trying to entertain two little boys, two and one years old and tired. I decided to take them outside for a walk in the tiny town, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, and had them outside when this man appeared and told me that my children were lovely. I thanked him and he promptly disappeared…into thin air.I know he was my angel that day as I was a tired mom of two energetic tots and they needed a mom who was refreshed and saw the beauty and joy in her two sons. The rest of the day, and even thirteen years later, I recall the goodness of the Lord by my angel’s visit!
Hi Fr. Dwight,It is strange that I was drawn to your article on CNA-Political Punch this evening, then to your website and this post. Guardian angels — I was discussing them just this past weekend while helping facilitate a group at a scouting retreatoree. I mentioned my encounter with who I believe was my Guardian angel and thought I’d share.A summer job when I was 18 and in college lead me to being in the middle of a steel mill. The college kids were rotated through the blast furnace area so we would have the opportunity to see a furnace tapped – a truly amazing event. The mill was huge blocks long, dirty, dusty, dark, noisy. The building had two sides with a railroad track crossing over at a point where the trains could access the furnaces to unload scrape for re-melting. Just before the crossover was a building. A traffic signal was there, just like on a street, to warn of approaching trains.As I was walking toward the crossing, I was distracted by a bright lights from one of the furnaces to my left. An access door had been opened by a silver fire-suited worker could dump in some materials to charge the furnace. Mesmerized, I was watching him while walking forward. Suddenly, I felt a clamp like grip on my right shoulder and found myself flying backward through the air. I whirled my head around to see a huge man dressed in the green asbestos fire suit and hard hat common to furnace workers. The man was older, black with heavy jowls and the most clear beautiful carmel colored eyes. As I tried to utter a work, but couldn’t, he was looking forward, past me. He said “son, you gots to be careful where you walk.” With that he set me down. In that same instant, I followed his gaze around and saw the red signal and the locomotive. I had missed the signal light and stepped directly into the path of the train. When, a moment later, I turned to thank that man, he was gone. I had a clear sight line for hundreds of feet, there were no doors or alleyway or aisles nearby. My friend had simply vanished. I think then that I knew that I had encountered my Guardian angel. It took many years later to fully realise what had occurred. Many things have happened in my life since then, good and not so good. Other things have occurred that makes me certain that my angel still stands by me. Why, I don’t know. I do know that I am learning day by day to stay open to God’s will, and pray for the faith that I may know it in my life. And, do whatever His will asks of me. It is not easy. But I pray that my angel will always be with me, know he will nudge me, catch me, aid me. I pray that me story will encourage others to believe not only in their Guardian angel, but in a loving God who has sent others for us. May will always pray for the faith to be open to His will and fear not the path He makes for us.
I have read about St Padre Pio’s and St Josemaria’s guardian angel and now the stories in this post but…I consider myself a Faithful Catholic but I have a problem with guardian angels as protectors. If we all have guardian angels why are children, women and men physically, sexually and emotionally abused? I have no problems with angels as messengers or guides but protectors?? I would appreciate some help on this matter either directly or via a reference to a link or book.
Great question, Victoria. I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that I have been the victim of a personally violent crime AND my guardian angels have directly saved me in two traffic accidents within the last decade.One, I was driving 65 mph up our 4-lane highway in traffic, and a flatbed truck pulled out in front of me. I actually let go of the steering wheel and raised my arms in front of my face because I saw that flatbed coming for me. There was no escape route, being surrounded by traffic, and I let go on a serious curve, not the straightaway. I was braking but I didn’t think that would be enough.Yet, nothing happened. And seconds later, I put my arms down and opened my eyes and I was fine, driving straight down the road, out of the curve, and the flatbed truck and the rest of the group of traffic was behind me. There is NO NATURAL EXPLANATION for ending up that way. I was stunned.Another time, there was construction on the main road, so all traffic was routed to a winding mountain back road. I was navigating uphill, up a very tight hairpin curve, and a semi was barrelling down the hill going way too fast into that curve, and I was directly in its path. I knew it was going to hit me. Again, I let go of the steering wheel and put my arms in front of my face, flinching for the impact. But it didn’t hit me and there’s no way it shouldn’t have. Even if it didn’t, I shouldn’t have been able to steer a turn up a tight hairpin turn without holding on to the steering wheel! Again…NO NATURAL EXPLANATION.I’m on my third primary cancer and I keep catching it just in time before it gets too dangerous. While it sucks to have cancer, it’s amazing to witness miracles in being the damned luckiest unlucky person in the whole world.None of this explains being unprotected through a violent attack by another person; perhaps it’s the mystery of free will, because angels keep saving me from natural phenomena and not the direct personal violence willed by another person. Perhaps it’s different somehow.I do know, though, that while I do not wish what happened to me on any other person, you do grow stronger in the broken places, and that point of strength is also the point of compassion for others experiencing the same things. God comforts us in our woes so we can pass that comfort on to others. It’s in the Bible.It was a formative experience, however awful, but I would be an entirely different person had it not happened.When life gives you sh**, God plants flowers.One of the greatest lessons is forgiving my attacker, truly, from the heart, and in so doing, knowing God has forgiven me of my stinking rotting heap of sin, which is far worse in my mind, because I claim to love God and sin anyway. The sins I detest the worst are my own.Like many things…”it’s a mystery”but God works good out of everything, for all those who are chosen according to His purpose.He has a plan. Sometimes it takes years and years of hot salty tears and suffering and prayer to see what His plan is. If we don’t figure it out in this life, we’ll see how everything fit together in our lives, in our life review, in the next life.