The memory of the Holy Angels, today expressly mentioned in the Roman martyrology of the Catholic Church, as custodian angels, It has been celebrated from 1670 on October 2, a date set by Pope Clement X (1670-1676); The Orthodox Church celebrates them on January 11th.
But who are the angels and what relationship do they have in the history of mankind? First of all the existence of angels is a dogma of faith, defined several times by the Church (Nicene symbol, Constantinopolitan symbol, IV Lateran Council (1215), Vatican Council I (1869-70)).
Everything related to angels has constituted a science of its own “angelology”; And all the Fathers of the Church and theologians have in their arguments, expressed and elaborate various interpretations and concepts, concerning their existence, creation, spirituality, intelligence, will, tasks, elevation and fall.
What does the Bible on angels say?
Specific episodes of the old and New Testament, they indicate the presence of angels: the struggle with the angel of Jacob (Genesis 32, 25-29); The scale traveled by the angels, dreamed of by Jacob (Genesis, 28, 12); the three guest angels of Abraham (Genesis, 18); the intervention of the angel who stops Abraham’s hand that is about to sacrifice Isaac; The angel who brings the food to the prophet Elia in the desert.
The announcement to the shepherds of the birth of Christ; The angel who appears in a dream to Giuseppe, suggesting to escape with Maria and the child; The angels who love and serve Jesus after temptations in the desert; the angel who announced to the Maddalena and the other women, the resurrection of Christ; the liberation of San Pietro, from prison and chains to Rome; Without forgetting the cosmic and celestial angelic symbolism of the apocalypse of s. Giovanni Evangelista.
What is the evangelical foundation of the figure of the guardian angel?
The guardian angel indicates The existence of an angel for every man, who guides him, protects him, from birth to death, is mentioned in the book of Job, but also by Jesus himself, in the Gospel of Matteo, When indicating children says: “Look at you from despising just one of these little ones, because I tell you that their angels in the sky always see the face of my Father who is in the skies”.
Sacred Scripture speaks of other tasks exercised by the angels, such as that of offering God our prayers and sacrifices, in addition to accompanying man in the way of good.
What is the celestial army and how is it composed?
The figure of the angel as a symbol of the celestial hierarchies, generally appears from the early days of Christianity, placing itself in continuation of the Jewish tradition and as the transformation of the pre -Christian types of victories and winged genes, which also had the mediator function, between the supreme deities and the land.
Through the teaching of De Celesti Hierarchia of the pseudo Dionigi the Areopagita, they are distributed into three hierarchies, each of which is divided into three choirs. The first hierarchy includes the seraphins, the cherubs and the thrones; the second dominations, virtues, power; The third the principalities, the archangels and the angels. The choirs are distinguished with each other for tasks, colors, wings and other identification signs, always according to the pseudo areopagita, the closest to God are the seraphins, red, a sign of burning love, with three pairs of wings; Then the cherubs come with six wings sprinkled with eyes like those of the peacock; The authorities have two wings with the colors of the rainbow; The principalities are armed angels facing God and so on.
More distinct for their specific quote in the Bible, are the Archangels, the celestial messengers, present in the most important moments in the history of salvation; Michele present since the early heads of the army of the sky against the rebellious angels, also appeared to Pope s. Gregorio Magno on Castel S. Angelo in Rome, left the sign of his presence in the Sanctuary of Monte S. Angelo in the Gargano; Gabriele the messenger of God, appeared to the prophet Daniele; In Zaccaria announced the birth of s. John the Baptist, but above all brought the announcement of the birth of Christ to the Virgin Mary; Raffaele is mentioned in the book of Tobia, he was a guide and Salvatore by the dangers of the young Tobia, then not mentioned in the Bible, there is Uriele, appointed twice in the fourth apocryphal book of Ezra, his name occurs frequently in the oriental liturgies, s. Ambrogio placed him among the archangels, accompanied the small s. Giovanni Battista in the desert, brought the alchemy to Earth.
Was Lucifer an angel?
Yes. The Lateran Council IV defined as truth of faith that many angels, abusing their freedom fell into sin and became bad.
St. Thomas stated that the angel could only commit a sin of pride, the celestial spirit devoid of the order established by God and not accepting him, he did not recognize the divine supremacy of his perfection, therefore sin of pride to which he immediately achieved a sin of disobedience and envy for the excellence of others. Other sins could not commit them, because they suppose the passions of the meat, for example hatred, despair.
Still St. Thomas of Aquino specific, that the sin of the angel has consisted in wanting to make himself similar to God. The Christian tradition has given the name of Lucifer to the most beautiful and shining of the angels and their boss, rebelled against God and precipitated from heaven in hell; Lucifer’s pride for his beauty and power, led him to the great act of pride with which he opposed God, drawing on his side a certain number of angels. Other angels of the celestial army headed by Michele sided against him, hiring a great and primordial struggle in which Lucifer with all his, succumb and was crashed from the sky; He became head of demons or devils in hell and symbol of the most unbridled pride.
The name Lucifer and its identification with the rebel head of the angels derived from a text by the prophet Isaiah (14, 12-15) in which a satire on the fall of a Babylonian tyrant, was interpreted by many ecclesiastical writers and Dante himself himself (Inferno XXIV), as the description in poetic form of the celestial rebellion and the fall of the head of the angels. “As you fell from the sky, star of the morning, son of the Aurora! As you were crashed on the ground, you who attack all the nations! Yet you thought in your heart: I will go up to the sky, above the stars of God I will raise my throne … I will climb the highest clouds, I will be similar to the Most High. And instead you have been precipitated in the abyss, in the bottom of the abyss!”.
What do angels do?
Sacred Scripture suggests several times that angels They enjoy the vision of the face of God, because the happiness to which celestial spirits were destined, the needs of nature surrendered and is supernatural.
And in the New Testament a comparison between men, saints and angels is frequently established, as if the destiny to which the first are intended, nothing but a participation for the purpose already achieved by the good angels, which are indicated as “saints, children of God, angels of light” and who are “before God, in the presence of God or his throne”; All expressions that indicate their state of bliss; They were sanctified in the instant of their creation.
What are the attributes of the angels?
Intelligence and will.
The angel as being spiritual cannot be without these two faculties; Indeed in him they must be much more powerful, as he is pure of spirit; On the promptness and infallibility of angelic intelligence, as well as on energy, tenacious will, superior freedom, the great Angelic doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, wrote widely in his Summa Theologicalto which you refer for an in -depth analysis.
