Question 10.163

10.163 What precisely are angels?

From the Bible we know that the angels are pure spirits, messengers of God, endowed with extraordinary intelligence and bathed in God’s light. The angels truly live with God, forming around him a celestial court that never stops praising the Creator.

They are the protectors and natural guides of men. I find it particularly important to be aware of the existence of our guardian angel, who watches over us at every moment. Christ often mentions the angels, revealing to us that “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Lk 15:10). The Son of God asks us to make sure to love children, “for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 18:10).

The example of the angels reminds men of the necessity of living a holy life, one that is honest and pure. In heaven we will be brought to live in their company, lost in the glory of God. Indeed, Christ tells the Sadducees: “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Lk 20:34-36).

Mankind truly needs to be assisted by these mysterious beings. I am not unaware of the fact that it may be difficult to speak about angels in a world that is set in its rationalistic, narcissistic ways.

Nonetheless, the Bible explains that in God’s eyes man is superior to the angels.

God did not become incarnate in an angel. Although he selected the Archangel Gabriel to be the messenger of his Incarnation, he chose to come down to earth in human flesh. The Letter to the Hebrews declares: ” ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels, you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.’ Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one” (Heb 2:6-9).

Man’s greatness is found in the Incarnation, and the angels who freely accepted this great mystery praise God eternally.

With his sublime sense of pedagogy, Benedict XVI explained in a homily to religious and seminarians of Bavaria (September 11, 2006): “To be with Jesus and, being sent, to go out to meet people-these two things belong together and together they are the heart of a vocation, of the priesthood. To be with him and to be sent out-the two are inseparable. Only one who is ‘with him’ comes to know him and can truly proclaim him. … Pope Gregory the Great, in one of his homilies, once said that God’s angels, however far afield they go on their missions, always move in God. They remain always with him.”

It is significant that in the Vatican gardens Pope Francis, together with Benedict XVI, decided to bless a statue of Saint Michael and to place the Vatican under the protection of that archangel.

Finally, I cannot forget the fine, strong words that Francis spoke in September 2014 during his morning meditation: “Satan is subtle: the first page of Genesis says so. . . He presents things as if they were good, but his intention is destruction. … The angels defend us: they defend man and they defend Godman, the superior man, Jesus Christ, who is the perfection of humanity, the most perfect one. [This is why] the Church honors the angels, because it is they who will be in the glory of God. . . because they defend the great hidden mystery of God, that is, that the Word came in the flesh.”