Religion Q & A – More on Angels

Sebastian asks: “Can an archangel have assistant angels or archangels?”

Answer: Dionysius identifies Choirs and Hierarchies of angels, and Scripture mentions up to nine different orders in the Old and New Testaments: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Archangels, and Angels.

St. Bernard describes them in this way: “The citizens of that country are spirits, mighty, glorious, blessed, separate personalities, of gradual rank, from the beginning standing in their own order, perfect of their kind.”

While all human beings belong to the same species and only differ in physical appearance, intellectual capacity, psychological composition and personality, angels differ from one another as much as a dog from a cat. They are each in a sense a different species, perfect in their own right as created by God for a specific purpose.

Despite these differences, all the angels were made to glorify God above all things, and so they work together united under the One Lord. We do not know if they have particular assistants, as people do when working for a business or corporation. Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel – the only three Archangels we know by name – are seen working alone, but we can assume that if needed, the angels do help one another to “fight the good fight” when going into battle against the forces of evil.

You can read more at…
The Angels: Morning Stars of Creation (EWTN resource)

Andrea C. asks: “When someone dies, could their guardian angel go to someone else that really needs that one particular angel?”

Answer: Another teenage somewhere out there had a very similar question, so I’m going to give you Matthew Pinto’s answer from his book Did Jesus Have a Last Name? And 199 other questions from Catholic teenagers.

“This is one of the few ‘we don’t know’ answers in this book. The Church has not taught anything on this subject, so theologians are free to speculate. Because each individual person is unique and ‘unrepeatable,’ it would seem appropriate that guardian angels are not ‘recycled’ and given to another person.

On a slightly different note, there are people who sometimes pray that their guardian angel will go help someone else in need, such as when they have a family member who is in a dangerous situation. In this case, if the guardian angel were to honor this request and evacuate his first assignment temporarily in order to give some support to another guardian angel having a particularly rough day with his assignment, then maybe that could be considered to be a sort of angelic maneuvering among assignments!”

Brielle D. asks: “When we we’re talking about guardian angels today I wanted to ask you, did your guardian angel’s name just pop up in your head? How did it come to you?”

Answer: I went to a talk about Angels given by Dominic Berardino, who is now a friend of mine in the Catholic ministry circles. He has done much reading about angels and he said that we can actually ask our guardian angels what their names are. We can talk to them just as we talk to God in prayer, and if we listen carefully enough we will get an answer eventually.

So, essentially, I prayed and asked my guardian angel his/her name. The name that came to me was “Mikael” (pronounced Mee-kah-yel). Yes, it kind of just popped in my head and I felt a great sense of peace when I heard it. Of course I wanted to double-check that I wasn’t making it up, so I asked again a few weeks later and the same name was repeated again and again. Even if I had never met my angel in person, the name felt very familiar – as if I had known it all along – and it made sense that it was a male name because I had a feeling my angel had “male characteristics” (i.e., a warrior-type to match my own strong personality).

FYI, if Gary and I ended up having a boy, we decided that his middle name would be “Mikael”, named after my guardian angel. Alas, we had a girl as you know, so the name will be saved for Meleana’s little brother. =)

Darrin asks: “Have you seen your guardian angel and if so can you tell me the story?”

Answer: No, I have not had the opportunity to see my guardian angel in material form, though I know and believe he is here with me. I do try to talk to him when I remember that he’s there, but unfortunately that isn’t every day. Having these discussions with all of you about angels is renewing my awareness of my own angel, so I am definitely making more of an effort to involve my guardian angel in my prayers and day-to-day activities as I ask for more of his help.

Michael O. asks: “How do you know when your guardian angel is with you?”

Answer: Your guardian angel is always with you, from the moment you are born to the moment that you end your life here on earth. They never leave your side because they are given to you by God to protect and pray for you.

Jesus himself in the Gospel of Matthew says, “…do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father” (Mt 18:10). Here Jesus acknowledges the existence of angels that guard God’s children here on earth while keeping their eyes on the Father in heaven.

Psalm 91:11-12 does the same: “For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways. With their hands they shall support you, lest you strike your foot against a stone.“

Angie asks: “I was just wondering if newborn babies such as Meleana have a guardian angles right from the moment that they were conceived? “

Answer: Like I told Michael above, we all receive our guardian angels at birth because that is when we need our own protection outside of the womb of our mother. The day after Meleana was born, I was holding her in my arms, feeling a little sad that I was not carrying her inside of me anymore. I was sad only because I could no longer protect her in the same way I could when I was pregnant. Even though I wasn’t directly praying at the moment, I felt God telling me not to worry…that I should remember all the protection he provides for each one of us, particularly through our guardian angels. It was then that I knew I needed to trust God with my daughter and leave her in the hands of the angel that was given to her when she was born.

Christiana asks: “If you have any more stories about guardian angels or some other stories, can u tell it to the class?”

Answer: Sure! When I get back to SJS, I have a 30-minute video to show you. It’s called Angels All Around Us: The Catholic Belief and Experience about angelic appearances and stories told by a few people who met their angels.

I also borrowed one of my mom’s books called Where Angels Walk: True Stories of Heavenly Visitors by Joan Wester Anderson. I’ll read some of the stories from there also!