Question

Dear Father Angelo,

My name is Antonio, I am 23 years old and I only recently discovered this interesting and resourceful website.

I have two questions regarding our approach to the guardian angel.

What is the purpose of their intercession? What is the point of asking the guardian angel (or similarly, a saint) for help, when we can ask God directly? Neither our guardian angel nor any saint will ever love us the way the Lord loves. Therefore, why should they intercede with God on our behalf? To convince the Lord? But if the angel (or the saint) is convinced about the good in our request, shouldn’t God himself, who is the final Love and Generosity, be even more persuaded about it?

Assuming that the angels are nothing more than a projection of the Lord Himself,  when we ask them for help, we ask God Himself. What is therefore the reason for their existence? Could you explain to me better what a guardian angel is, and what kind of relationship we should build with them?

I thank you for the service you provide to us readers and I greet you,

Antonio

Answer from the priest

Dear Antonio,

1. The intercession of those in heaven (angels and saints) is necessary for us not in the measure we make our needs known to God, but rather to obtain what we ask for by virtue of their merits.

We are aware that we cannot achieve anything with our own merits, but we can achieve a lot with their intercession and their help.

2. The intercession of the inhabitants of heaven reminds us that death does not break the bonds between God’s friends.

Going to Heaven does not mean ceasing to love, but rather to spread our love and benefit from a higher and more effective position.

Saints can spread their good from heaven to a greater measure than they did on Earth.

3. At the same time, this intercession stimulates us to imitate their example and to keep heaven as our ultimate goal. 

4. Specifically to our guardian angels: we invoke them because they have been commissioned by God to protect us.

The angels love us, they want us in Heaven with them, and they are happy to assist us because they have received this assignment from God.

5. The Bible presents several episodes in which men invoke the angels.

Jacob asks the angel who just wrestled with him to bless him. He actually forces the angel to bless him by declaring that he would not let him go unless he received his blessing: “He said, Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Gn 32,27).
On his deathbed, he entrusted his children to the Angel who blessed him: “The Angel who has delivered me from all harm, bless these boys” (Gn 48,16).

6. God Himself asks us to worship the angels and the saints. In fact, God distributes his benefits to us also through the intercession of the righteous. In the Gospel of Luke, we read that “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” (Lk 15:7). This means that the saints in heaven intercede with their prayers for our conversion.

7. It could be argued that the intercession of the saints might be perfectly useless, since God does not need intercessors and intermediaries to distribute his grace on men. In this regard, we should remember the episode described in the Bible in which God forgives Abimelech for his sin only because Abraham pleases and prays for him: “Abraham then interceded with God, and God restored health to Abimelech, that is, to his wife and his maidservants, so that they could bear children; for God had tightly closed every womb in Abimelech’s household on account of Abraham’s wife Sarah” (Gn 20,17-18). Similarly, in the book of Job, God forgives Job’s friends only after Job interceded for them: “now, therefore, […], and go to my servant Job, and offer up a holocaust for yourselves; and let my servant Job pray for you; for his prayer I will accept, not to punish you severely. For you have not spoken rightly concerning me, as has my servant Job” (Jb. 42,8).

8. Naturally, the Lord Jesus Christ is our only mediator. Saint Paul said that “we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life” (Rom 5:10). Again, he said that Jesus “entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Heb 9:12). 

Nevertheless, this fundamental truth of our faith does not prevent us from worshiping and invoking angels and saints. The same Saint Paul, a strong supporter of the unique mediation of Jesus, insists on asking for the prayers of brothers in faith: “I urge you, (brothers,) by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in the struggle by your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the disobedient in Judea, and that my ministry for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the holy ones” (Rom 15,30-31). This is a clear sign that the prayers of the saints in heaven and the intercession of the righteous on earth does not diminish the glory of Christ the mediator.

9. God Himself manifests his appreciation for the prayers addressed to the saints by working prodigies through them. In the second book of Kings, a corpse was placed by mistake in Elisha’s tomb. Upon contact with the Prophet’s bones, the corp immediately regained life: “Once some people were burying a man, when suddenly they spied such a raiding band. So they cast the dead man into the grave of Elisha, and everyone went off. But when the man came in contact with the bones of Elisha, he came back to life and rose to his feet.” (2 Kings, 13,21).

10. Finally, the expression you used “angels are projections of God” is ambiguous and may lead to misunderstandings. I recommend you to say it differently: that the angels are God’s creatures, and that they are pure spirits.

I hope I convinced you to renew your communion with the angels and the saints. It is a very fecund communion for you and for all of us.

I entrust you to their intercession and bless you,

Father Angelo

Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian