OF ANGELS AND MEN, HAIL MARYS AND NURSES, DEMONIC POWERS AND A SORE THUMB

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I had a word with my guardian angel the other day. That's not something I'm used to doing but judging by the results, I should be.





What I said to him was, "Please have a word with Conon's guardian angel". 

The day before, son Conon had ripped his thumb to the bone its entire length, driving a waratah standard into rock (as you do), and needed a general anaesthetic to stitch it up. You're thinking, it's a pity she didn't have a word with her guardian angel about this a day sooner. Yes. Mea culpa. 

But it's only since reading Bishop Athanasius Schneider's work, Christus Vincit, in which the penultimate chapter is all about 'The Holy Angels' that I'm coming to realise what a resource I've overlooked, all my life. So I asked my angel to speak to Conon's, for his protection.

I'd told his big sister I hoped to see him before he went into theatre, to lend him his great-grandfather's rosary beads. "He packed his phone charger," I told her, "but I doubt he packed his rosary."

She said, "I've got a spare. It's only plastic." I said, better plastic than a family heirloom which is used night and day. He went into theatre sooner than expected and with Grandad's rosary in hand I waited for him to be wheeled out, which he was eventually, wearing an enormous bandage and round his neck a white plastic rosary (pretty much matched by the colour of his phiz). The nerve in his thumb, he said, had been "shredded".

He told me his sister (who lives much closer to the hospital) had arrived with the rosary before the op, in the nick of time. The orderly who took him out of theatre didn't seem to know the way to the ward so a nurse took him over. She saw the rosary and said, "Would you like me to pray with you?"

Conon told me it was Hail Marys all the way to the ward. Even if he can't pray the rosary while driving - he's tried and just can't - he knows how to pray a "Hail Mary to Our Lady of the Way", as I was taught by a first cousin of mine, a holy priest, Fr Brian Quin SM.

And the day before, when he reached the ward from E D, he'd been greeted by his sister's sister-in-law, who's on the ward only two days a week while completing cancer treatment in Auckland. She who made a fuss of Conon, presenting him with a brand-new toothbrush and paste although he'd had had the presence of mind, while waiting a long time for the ambulance to arrive at the farm, to pack his toothbrush and paste - but not his rosary. (I think he will next time, and given his penchant for derring-do there's bound to be a next time, guardian angel or no.)

He'd met the Hail Mary nurse on the way out of hospital, and gave her the white plastic rosary to give to any patient who, lacking a sister or mother with rosaries to spare, might need it.

We talked about that over sammies at lunchtime yesterday on the farm, with one of his three children.  I told them both about Bishop Schneider's book and his "holy angels". Last night he sent me a text: "Thanks for the guardian angel hook-up." And another today, saying "Can use my name. For a small fee."

In Christus Vincit Bishop Schneider makes the following points in regard to angels:

• Angels are our best companions on our path to heaven 
• They are incorporeal and purely intellectual

St  Thomas Aquinas, 'the Angelic Doctor'

• St Thomas Aquinas says, "The Mystical Body of the Church consists not only of men but also of angels".We ought to live this reality by praying, working and fighting for Christ with our heavenly brother and companions, the holy angels
• After Vatican II "a kind of obliviousness to the supernatural and invisible world of the angels rolled in across the ecclesiastical landscape"
• "Devotion to the holy angels is therefore a very powerful means of turning again toward the supernatural"
• "God is so lavish with His gifts that He chose an angel from all eternity to be, only once, the guardian angel for a specific person
• "My guardian angel was given only for me, and he is a very powerful spiritual being who is always in the presence of God"
• "The entire angelic world was created in one instant in the beginning of creation"
• "The ambition of every angel is to be one day a guardian angel, to experience the lowliness of the last angelic choir and of humble and patient service to a concrete human person. When he finishes his service of guardian angel he returns to his original choir"
• "In heaven we will know the name and see the personality of our own guardian angel"
• "According to some theological authors such as St Bonaventure, the guardian angel will accompany the soul into Purgatory"
• It's dangerous to ask for the name of one's guardian angel; you can give him a name but this is your personal affair
• "God gives particular charisms needed for each age"
• "In the present age when demonic and satanic powers have increased ... God sends us the assistance of the holy angels to combat the evil spirits"
• "When I venerate my guardian angel ... I am asking (him) to bring me the light of God so that I may better understand the mystery of faith, that I may better adore Christ, that I may better fight in the spiritual life"
• "Many of the saints sent their guardian angel to another person when it was difficult for them to speak to that person ...Padre Pio did this on numerous occasions"
• "There is a formula approved by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2000 for consecration to the holy angels"
• "We need to spread devotion to the holy angels, to be spiritually united in a common and holy battle for Christ"
• It's a help to ask our guardian angels for a "very strong reminder" when we are "in danger of offending the Lord"
• "The angels also protect us in our physical needs and in our travels ... but especially from accidents of the soul
• The Sanctus of the Holy Mass is the prayer most beloved to the holy angels
• "When I enter a church, I kneel down and pray first the Sanctus with my guardian angel, and with the angels that surround the tabernacle; they are there"
• "The angels want to serve us in the Church"
• "God entrusted the entire creation and every detail of creation to the protection and care of the holy angels, as Catholic tradition has always said
• Every country has a protecting angel
• "When the Angel of Portugal appeared to the children (at Fatima) it was not strange for them because the feast of the Angel of Portugal had already been known in their country for centuries
• "The angels are very modest; they do not impose themselves on us. They are eager to help us, but we have to ask"
• "Parents need to tell children they have a guardian angel whom they can invoke. Children are very open and sensitive to this. Children can ask their guardian angel to adore the Lord on their behalf while they are sleeping
• "Even some good priests and some of the faithful are already so deceived and confused that they consider a clear affirmation of Catholic truths unnecessary"
• "They forget that  clear enunciation of revealed divine truths, in the definitive formulations of the Magisterium of the Church, is one of the highest expressions of pastoral care and love of neighbour"
• " To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity" (Benedict XVI) 
• "We are being attacked from both sides: by the liberal Freemasonic powers which more or less are reigning in each country of the Western world and from radical Islam

Bishop Schneider consecrated himself to his guardian angel at the age of about sixteen. "I especially ask him to bring me the necessary illumination to understand the Catholic faith in the right manner.  I have experienced this help to penetrate more deeply the truths and beauty of the Catholic faith. ... I have had the sensation that one acquires a sort of instinct of what is Catholic, what is true.


He concludes his chapter on 'The Holy Angels' with this "luminous exhortation" from a speech made to American pilgrims, shortly before his death, by Pope Pius XII: 

“Revive your sense of the invisible world which is all around us – because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen (2 Cor 4:18) – and have a certain familiarity with the angels, who are forever solicitous for your salvation and your sanctification. 

"If God wishes, you will spend a happy eternity with the angels: get to know them here, from now on."

Michelangelo's Angels

https://onepeterfive.com/vigano-vatican-ii-marked-the-beginning-of-a-false-parallel-church/

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2019/01/not-just-more-scripture-but-different.html