Mid Week Meditations

By: Fr. Apostolos

According to a prayer at our baptism, we are assigned a Guardian Angel. "Yoke unto his (her) life a radiant Angel, who shall deliver him (her) from every snare of the adversary, from encounter with evil, from the demon of the noon­day."

God gives us a protector to aid us in fending off Satan's attempts to tempt us into corrupting the new life, which we are given at our baptism. The main work of our guardian angel is to protect our souls from anything that may harm it. As we see from the prayer, the Church does believe that there is Satan, an evil spirit.

The guardian angel also has other responsibilities. He functions as an "angel of peace," an "angel of penitence," and as an "angel of prayer." How often do we ignore the prayer in the Divine Liturgy, where we pray for an "angel of peace" to be a "faithful guide and guardian of our souls and bodies?"

As an angel of penitence he encour­ages us to repent, to reconcile ourselves with God.

However, it is as an "angel of prayer" when our guardian angel is most help­ful and busy. When we say our private prayers, alone before our icon, our prayers are joined by the choirs of angels according to St. Clement of Alexandria. Prayer is the most honest expression of our faith in and our love of God. It is here that our angel adds our prayers to those of others both living and dead (in the Church visible and invisible) and presents our prayers to God.

What exactly are angels? According to St. Dionysius, "An angel is an image of God, a manifestation of the invisible light, a burnished mirror, bright, untar­nished, without spot or blemish, receiv­ing all the beauty of the absolute good­ness, and kindling in itself, with unal­loyed radiance, the goodness of the secret silence."

Yes, angels are a reflection of God's glory and exist to serve as His messen­gers; but the more we become properly aware of the role that angels have played in the salvation history of humanity, we become strengthened in our capacity for good. But, most impor­tantly, we become more capable of detecting and resisting the temptations and traps that Satan will lay before us.

Angels, then, are more than mere helpers as TV and movies portray them. They are the bearers of the very Name and Power of God. They are the light and strength of the Lord.