Posted on 07/08/2007 8:24:37 PM PDT by stfassisi
I do not hesitate to say that devotion to the angels is one of the hallmarks of being a true Christian. It was an angel who first appeared to our Lady to announce her conception of Jesus Christ at Nazareth. It was an angel who appeared to the shepherds at Bethlehem to tell them that the Messiah had been born. It was an angel who consoled our Lord in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was an angel who told the women who visited the tomb in which Christ had been buried, that the Savior was risen from the dead. It was angels who told the disciples staring into the sky at Christs ascension that He would return from heaven to earth even as He had ascended from earth to heaven. It was an angel who delivered Peter from prison where he was chained for his proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah. It will be angels who will announce the coming of Christ on the last day of time and the first day of eternity to judge the living and the dead.
Our focus in this conference is on Devotion to the Angels. Before we go any further, I would like to identify what devotion to the angel means.
Devotion to the angels means venerating the angels.
Devotion to the angels means praying to the angels.
Devotion to the angels means promoting the apostolate to the angels.
Devotion to the angels means imitating the angels. My purpose in this conference will be to explain each of these four forms of angelic devotion, and apply our explanation to the practical, day by day, living of our Catholic faith.
Veneration of the Angels To venerate the angels means two things. It means to know who the angels are and to respond to this faith knowledge with our love.
If anyone still wonders why we should be giving so many conferences on the angels, let me assure him that it is positively necessary in our day. Literally hundreds of books, periodicals, movies, and television programs, are flooding todays market with so much angelism that we better understand what the Catholic Church teaches about the angels.
There are two obvious sources for authentic knowledge about the angels. They are divine revelation and the teaching of the Churchs tradition over the centuries.
One of the surprises for lay Catholics today is the preoccupation with the angels which characterized the life of Catholics in the believing centuries of the Middle Ages. There were Church definitions in angelology; there were papal and episcopal documents; there were extensive treatises in theology dealing with the faithful and fallen angels. St. Thomas Aquinas is called the angelic doctor mainly because he published tens of thousands of words on the nature, and function, and role of the angels in the life of the human race.
One of the heartening signs of a conversion in materialistic countries like America is the rising avalanche of print and the media on the angels.
We are asking: Who are the angels? The angels are persons, created by God, who have a mind and a will, but do not have the limitations of a material body.
Like the human race, the angels had to prove their fidelity to God by submitting their free wills to His divine Majesty.
Our concentration in this conference is on the good angels who remained faithful in their obedience to God. These angels are constantly adoring the Holy Trinity, even as they are enjoying the vision of the Triune God.
However, they are angels because they are messengers of Gods providence in our lives. They are His angels to enlighten our minds and inspire our wills. Why? So that they might bring us to that celestial Jerusalem where they are waiting for us to join them.
Venerating the angels, we must remind ourselves, is not only believing in their existence and generous service in our favor. We venerate the angels by responding to the graces which they bring from God to us. They are channels of Gods love to us. We are to use these graces and thus show our grateful love for God in return.
Praying to the Angels Until the sixteenth century when Protestantism broke with Catholic unity, prayer to the angels was part of the staple diet of Catholic piety. Living in a culture which has been so deeply protestantized, we must brace ourselves and not be misled by the errors of those who deny that we should pray to the angels.
Praying to the angels means talking with the angels; telling them how we admire their nearness to God and look forward to joining them after we finish our trial here on earth. Praying to the angels is thanking them for the many favors they have done for us over the years and how much we appreciate their angelic care for our needs. Praying to the angels is asking them for what we need. Certainly we could go directly to God with our petitions. But we know what sinners we are and how close the angels are to the all holy One. We are therefore sure that their nearness to God makes them powerful intercessors on our behalf. Praying to the angels is begging them to plead for us at the throne of the merciful God whom we have offended and from whom we hope to obtain His forgiving mercy.
All of this is locked up in the single phrase, Praying to the angels. You might change the preposition if you wish, and say that we pray through the angels to God, being assured that their nearness to Him makes their influence with Him greater than would be our addressing God by ourselves. If Christ in His agony was strengthened by an angel of the Lord, who are we to think we can dispense with angelic assistance in our lives?
The Angelic Apostolate I can honestly tell you that the conferences that we are having on the angels is unembarrasingly an angelic apostolate. I sincerely believe that what the world today needs is a deeper, clearer, stronger and more zealous devotion to the angels than ever before since the time of Christ.
Why do I say this? Because the angels are such a powerful militia for protecting a world that is being widely seduced by the fallen angels.
In our next two conferences we shall deal at length with Christian Faith and Demonology and The Devil in the Modern World. For the present we wish to examine more carefully into what the angelic apostolate really means.
By definition, an apostolate is the zealous effort to bring Gods grace to others through the practice of the corporal and the spiritual works of mercy.
You might ask What do the angels have to do with the corporal and spiritual works of mercy? The answer is, everything!
The seven corporal works of mercy are: to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to visit the sick, to visit those in prison, and to bury the dead.
These works of mercy are the seven conditions on which Christ prophesied our salvation would depend. It is not coincidental that, on the last day He will tell those who are lost, Depart from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels(Matthew 25:41).
Why will human beings be lost? Because during their life on earth they had allowed themselves to be seduced by the devil into selfishness and failed to practice the works of mercy.
The good angels are especially chosen by God to protect us from the self-idolatry which ignores the needs of others and thus paves the way for the eternal loss of a heavenly destiny.
The good angels protect us from the selfishness of the devil, so we might practice the corporal works of mercy. But the good angels also inspire us to practice the spiritual works of mercy. They are: converting the sinner, instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, comforting the sorrowful, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving injuries, and praying for the living and the dead.
As twenty centuries of Christianity tell us, our salvation also depends on our practice of the spiritual works of mercy. If anything, the devil is more anxious to prevent us from practicing the spiritual than the corporal works of mercy. We need the help of the good angels to protect us from the devils instigation on both levels.
I spent last week in Haiti, giving instructions to the Missionaries of Charity. While there, I visited one of the five homes for the dying conducted by the Sisters. I administered more infant baptisms, more anointings of the dying, and gave more absolutions in a few hours than I had given in the past five years. Here is a nation dreadfully in need of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and there are so few dedicated Catholics available to meet what I can only call superhuman needs, in a subhuman society, literally dying for lack of Christian charity. Do not tell me this is not the work of the evil spirit. Do not tell me that we do not need to promote the angelic apostolate among the faithful.
We said that devotion to the angels includes the apostolate to the angels. This should be taken literally. Of course we must first develop our own deep veneration for the angels and frequent prayer to the angels. But we dare not stop there. We are to do everything in our power to inspire others to follow our example. The apostolate to the angels, I sincerely believe, is one of the most gravely needed in contemporary Christianity.
The angels are sent by God to us. We in turn are being sent by the angels to others to bring to everyone whose life we touch a deeper veneration of the angels, a more fervent prayer to the angels, and a more zealous dependence on the angels to protect a world that is immersed in self-adoration to the rejection of the most elemental laws of God.
Imitation of the Angels Humanly speaking the last persons you would expect to imitate are the angels. There are people, good Catholics that I know, who do not even realize that the angels are persons. How could you imitate someone who was not even an individual intelligent being, which is the standard definition of a person.
Moreover, angels do not have bodies. They do not have bodily emotions. They do not have eyes or ears or lips or hands or feet. The angels in heaven do not have temptations. They cannot sin. They have no inordinate passions or sinful urges.
Can we still say that the angels are imitable? Is there any intelligible sense in which we not only can but should follow their example?
Here we enter an area as wide as the ocean and as high as the stars. Yet, there is more than passing value in understanding something, no matter how little, of what it means to imitate the angels and how this imitation should be put into practice.
Angels as Contemplatives. All that our faith tells us about the angels is that they constantly behold the face of God. They are contemplating the Holy Trinity.
In the vocabulary of Catholic Christianity, contemplation is the enjoyable admiration of perceived truth (St. Augustine). Contemplation is the elevation of the mind resting on God (St. Bernard). Contemplation is the simple intuition of divine truth that produces love (St. Thomas).
On all these terms, the angels are certainly living a life of intense contemplation. They are not only always thinking of God, they are always loving God with the full intensity of their being. More still, they are seeing God with an intuitive vision in which God is so close to their minds that not even angelic thoughts stand between themselves and the most Holy Trinity. Needless to say, this vision of Gods infinity fills them with a joy for which no words in the human vocabulary can describe.
The angels are constantly praising God, constantly adoring the Creator in a most perfect form of prayer that only the celestial hierarchy can give the Divine Majesty.
Angels Active on Earth. By all human calculation, the ecstatic prayer in which the angels are engaged should preoccupy them so completely that they could not do anything else. We might even say they should not be doing anything else. After all, what is more sublime than prayerful contemplation?
But the angels are not only contemplatives. They are contemplatives in action. As often as we may have heard the expression, Contemplation in action, this is a constant reality. Our faith tells us that the very name angel means messenger. The angels, as Christ tells us, who constantly behold the face of the Father are also constantly engaged in what we may call the angelic apostolate of serving our human needs.
The Lesson for Us. We are speaking about imitating the angels. We are asking ourselves how the angels are to be models for us to imitate and patterns that we should follow.
The single most important lesson that we should learn from the angels is that union with God in prayer is never to be divorced from our service of others. Among the early Fathers of the Church, St. Clement of Alexandria could not be more clear.
In every place, but not ostensibly and visibly to the multitude, the perfect Christian will pray. While engaged in walking, in conversation, while in silence, while engaged in reading and, in work that needs to be done, in every situation he prays (Stromata, VII, 7).
In other words, so far from serving others being incompatible with prayer, prayer should be the soul of everything we do in our practice of Christian charity.
Another saint tells us that, Prayer is the uplifting of the soul to God(St. Nilus, On Prayer, 35). Who would dare say that no matter what we are doing for others, whether engaged in conversation, or preparing a meal, typing at a computer, or teaching a class - we should not be simultaneously lifting our soul to God?
St. Thomas Aquinas explains how union with God through prayer can be combined with the practice of charity to others. When we pray, our minds are united with God. But our prayer deeply influences our will. Our mind can therefore be fixed on the Lord while our wills are choosing whatever actions the Lord wants us to perform.
One more quotation from St. Clement of Alexandria. He lived in the third century, in the height of the persecution of the Church. He knew what it means to combine contemplation and action. He told his contemporaries, The Christian prays in every situation, in his walks or recreation, in his dealings with others, in silence, in reading, in everything he does where his mind is active.
Our focus, remember, is the imitation of angels. They are our paradigm, our constant example, of combining union with God in prayer with the service of our neighbor in charity.
How to Imitate the Angels. I have saved the hardest question for last. How are we to imitate the angels in their remarkable ability to pray while working?
Before we say anything else, let us be sure that we are not talking in abstractions. The founder of consecrated life in the Western world was St. Benedict. The motto which he gave his followers and, through them, to the rest of the world, is a simple imperative, Ora et Labora, Pray and Work.
Notice what comes first. It is the duty to pray. Notice what comes second. It is the duty to work. Our souls are to be united with God after the example of the angels, and then, but only then, are we ready to serve the needs of the persons that God puts into our lives.
The hard question is how to combine these two. Dare I say that we have no choice. We can be busy in serving others, in fact, we can be preoccupied with what they need. But what is the main reason for our practice of charity towards other people? Is it to perform some chore, or serve some obvious human need? No, as the angels so clearly teach us, our underlying reason is to be channels of grace to the people whom we serve. No matter what else we may do for others, if we are not communicators of Gods grace to those whom we serve, we are not really serving what people mainly need. Their greatest and constant need is to receive light from God for their minds and strength from God for their wills. And our role in life is to be conduits of this grace to every single person who even momentarily touches our lives.
What is the key to being a channel of grace to others? The key is our own union with God in constant prayer.
This statement may be frightening when we first hear it. But it is the formula for living a truly Christian life. We are praying always if our wills are always ready to do the will of God. Everything else follows with simple logic.
Surely the angels are always disposed to do the will of God, whose face they are always beholding in celestial ecstasy. But that is precisely the secret. Our union with God in prayer is the condition for our living an angelic life of service in this valley of tears. We shall do only as much real good for others as our hearts are united in prayerful union with God.
Prayer Angel of God, my guardian and guide, teach me what it means to be devoted to you and your angel companions in heaven. Teach me to combine constant union with God in prayer with a constant readiness to be of service to others. Show me how I will be only as generous to others and only as effective in meeting their needs as I am united with our Lord in striving to do His will. I need your help to be a contemplative in action. I need your example to learn that no matter how busy I am here on earth, my mind and my heart must always be in heaven with God. Amen.
My devotion is to Jesus, and Him directly. Sufficient for me. All my prayers go to Him and Him alone. I dont pray to Saints or Angles, just to the Son of God, the one who died for me. Never an Angle or Saint ever died (sinless) for me. Never an Angle or saint died for me on a cross like Jesus did.
Jesus is my only intercessory between me and God.
Why would I ask for help from an Angel? A created being rather than go directly to God via His Son?
And, I believe, that Jesus is closer to God His father, than ever an Angel.
1 Corinthians 6:3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
Aside from the 'Created by God part', that is completely, utterly and inexcusably wrong:
They can have human bodies and mated with human women "whom they saw as fair" Gen: 1-6 and Sodom was later leveled because the Sodomites attempted to bugger an Angel. Being buggered sounds like a limitation of a human body to me.
They are purely instruments of God's Will and have no thoughts but God's thoughts--hence the rebellion and Fall of Lucifer when God created a person with Free Will and a Mind; Adam.
What Bible was this guy reading?!
You’re right doc. In the Bible angels have told men not to worship them but to worship the Lord God directly.
Faith-sharing bump.
Amen!
Should have been a caucus thread mayhap? Otherwise, open to actual readers of the Bible.
This is why we are told to be like the Bereans to read the Bible and test everything we are told or read against what we know to be true.
From my personal experience the rebuttal will come on the marrow when all that oppose the posted view have all gone to bed.
Then the angel told me, “Put this in writing. God will bless everyone who is invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” The angel also said, “These things that God has said are true.” I knelt at the feet of the angel and began to worship him. But the angel said, “Don’t do that! I am a servant, just like you and everyone else who tells about Jesus. Don’t worship anyone but God. Everyone who tells about Jesus does it by the power of the Spirit.”
(Revelation 19:9-10 CEV)
My name is John, and I am the one who heard and saw these things. Then after I had heard and seen all this, I knelt down and began to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown it to me. But the angel said, Don’t do that! I am a servant, just like you. I am the same as a follower or a prophet or anyone else who obeys what is written in this book. God is the one you should worship.
(Revelation 22:8-9 CEV)
However, there's absolutely no reason to believe that God created only what we see, even through micro/telescopes. Since He created our souls, He could obviously have created other invisible-to-us individuals.
I do believe, though, that only God knows what's in my heart and only He sees me in everything I do and say.
Angels are really amazing creatures. I know that Lucifer is an angel. I wonder if his demons are considered angels too. Hmmm.
Do you think the Angels run around heaven adoring and venerating each other?
Apparently about 1/3 of the Angels chose to give veneration and adoration to one of the Archangels created by God. They thought he was something special. He thought he was pretty special too.
From Saint Thomas Aquinas
“As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xv): “Many persons affirm that they have had the experience, or have heard from such as have experienced it, that the Satyrs and Fauns, whom the common folk call incubi, have often presented themselves before women, and have sought and procured intercourse with them. Hence it is folly to deny it. But God’s holy angels could not fall in such fashion before the deluge. Hence by the sons of God are to be understood the sons of Seth, who were good; while by the daughters of men the Scripture designates those who sprang from the race of Cain. Nor is it to be wondered at that giants should be born of them; for they were not all giants, albeit there were many more before than after the deluge.” Still if some are occasionally begotten from demons, it is not from the seed of such demons, nor from their assumed bodies, but from the seed of men taken for the purpose; as when the demon assumes first the form of a woman, and afterwards of a man; just as they take the seed of other things for other generating purposes, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii), so that the person born is not the child of a demon, but of a man.”
http://www.raphael.net/StThomas/SummaTheologiae/Q51.htm#2
You mean those fallen Angels of Course?and the Devil
It was those same(evil) ones that deceived Calvin and the reformers to deny the Real presence!
Have you ever posted under a different name?
Praying to the Angels is just wrong:
"For every prayer, and supplication, and intercession, and thanksgiving, is to be sent up to the Supreme God through the High Priest, who is above all the angels, the living Word and God. And to the Word Himself shall we also pray and make intercessions, and offer thanksgivings and supplications to Him, if we have the capacity of distinguishing between the proper use and abuse of prayer. For to invoke angels without having obtained a knowledge of their nature greater than is possessed by men, would be contrary to reason. But, conformably to our hypothesis, let this knowledge of them, which is something wonderful and mysterious, be obtained. Then this knowledge, making known to us their nature, and the offices to which they are severally appointed, will not permit us to pray with confidence to any other than to the Supreme God, who is sufficient for all things, and that through our Saviour the Son of God, who is the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and everything else which the writings of God's prophets and the apostles of Jesus entitle Him....And being persuaded that the sun himself, and moon, and stars pray to the Supreme God through His only-begotten Son, we judge it improper to pray to those beings who themselves offer up prayers to God, seeing even they themselves would prefer that we should send up our requests to the God to whom they pray, rather than send them downwards to themselves, or apportion our power of prayer beetween God and them....Celsus forgets that he is addressing Christians, who pray to God alone through Jesus" - Origen (Against Celsus, 5:4-5, 5:11, 8:37)
Catholics do not worship Angels either.
We acknowledge that they are there to help us,thus by acknowledging them and thier Love for us, it God it gives glory to God and His heavenly kingdom.
Catholics do not Ignore the wonderful things that God has given us!
I wish you a Blessed day!
Dear Friend,Listen to Saint Jerome(he even had influence on Bible canon)
“We, it is true, refuse to worship or adore, I say not the relics of the martyrs, but even the sun and moon, the angels and archangels, the Cherubim and Seraphim and ‘every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come.’ For we may not “serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Still we honour the relics of the martyrs, that we may adore Him whose martyrs they are. We honour the servants that their honour may be reflected upon their Lord who Himself says:—’he that receiveth you receiveth me.’ I ask Vigilantius, Are the relics of Peter and of Paul unclean? Was the body of Moses unclean, of which we are told (according to the correct Hebrew text) that it was buried by the Lord Himself? And do we, every time that we enter the basilicas of apostles and prophets and martyrs, pay homage to the shrines of idols? Are the tapers which burn before their tombs only the tokens of idolatry? I will go farther still and ask a question which will make this theory recoil upon the head of its inventor and which will either kill or cure that frenzied brain of his, so that simple souls shall be no more subverted by his sacrilegious reasonings. Let him answer me this, Was the Lord’s body unclean when it was placed in the sepulchre? And did the angels clothed in white raiment merely watch over a corpse dead and defiled, that ages afterwards this sleepy fellow might indulge in dreams and vomit forth his filthy surfeit, so as, like the persecutor Julian, either to destroy the basilicas of the saints or to convert them into heathen temples?” Jerome, To Riparius, Epistle 109:1 (A.D. 404).
Don’t pester him.
All Christians are saints.
Have you ever posted under a different name?
I don,t mind!
Perhaps he will learn something about historical Christianity and Catholicism
I wish you a Blessed day
No Catholic will disagree with you.
IOW, get the most favored kid to ask the folks, so the folks are more likely to give you what you want.
Trust Him! Trust His love for you! You either believe in the Real Presence or you don't. If you do, then you know He is with us, not off in a distant place where only the saints & angels are near to Him.
Yes, we are sinners. He gave His only begotten Son, so our sins can be forgiven. Think that was insufficient? Go & sin no more! Not dwell forever in the sins in your past. Not, live forever in remorse, because His Crucifixion can't ever possibly be enough, the weight of your sins are too great for Him.
Praying to the angels is begging them to plead for us at the throne of the merciful God whom we have offended and from whom we hope to obtain His forgiving mercy.
If your brother offends you, don't you want to hear his remorse directly from him? Is hearing about his remorse from your sister enough?
Put down your cross & pick up His!
I used to have some devotion to Angels. But then fate intervened and the Dodgers took the lead. It was the Koufax/Drysdale years that did it. A cousin of mine, btw, was the scout who discovered Koufax.
All of this ultimately gives glory to God because He created the Angels
On a side note:
Father John Hardon trusted practically everything he did in Eucharist.
The majority of his wrings were done on his knees in front of exposition of Eucharist.
Probably this article as well
I wish you a Blessed day
LOL!
The Yankees could use your cousins scouting for pitching!
How is the ole dog doing since he returned?
I wish you peace!
The sin of pride overtook Lucifer when he believed he should have been in Jesus Place. Lucifer wanted to be God.
From a non Catholics description by Antioch Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee:
Q: I was always taught that Angels could do nothing on their own. They were created to do God’s will and had no free will of their own. Then I hear Satan rebelled against God and 1/3 of the Angels followed him. How can this be if they have no free will?
A: The heavenly angels gladly and completely do the bidding of God. Psalm 103:20-21 states, “Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.” Their purpose is to do His commandments, hearken to His voice, and do His pleasure.
However, no scripture declares that angels have no free will. From the fact of the fall of so many of them, they obviously have some form of self- determination. That is, they have the freedom to remain in that holy estate into which they were placed by creation or to leave their first estate for a lower one. “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 1:6). Clearly, they are not robots unable to do anything but obey God.
However, their condition is not like that of man. Man can be redeemed from his fallen state by the applied blood of Jesus Christ. The fallen angels have no means by which they can return to their first estate after they leave it. They will all be cast into the “everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). Also, there is no mix of obedience with disobedience in the angels as there often is in regenerate man. The angels in heaven perform the commandments of God with full obedience (Psalm 103:20-21). The fallen angels are simply “the angels that sinned” (2Peter 2:4). No good is seen in them.
We will probably never be able to grasp with fullness the reason for the angels to rebel against God and leave their heavenly estate. They saw God in His absolute glory and holiness. They saw the greatness of His power. What could they hope to gain by a rebellion against such a God? However, scripture does reveal the initial motivation of their rebellion. From a study of Satan and his part in leading the rebellion, we know that their rebellion was fueled by willful pride. Isaiah 14:12-15 gives important insight into this matter. In this passage, Satan (as Lucifer) states five times, “I will.” Especially revealing is his fifth declaration: “I will be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:14). He did not desire to submit to the will and glory of God, but rather wanted to be like God himself.
This was pride. The bishop, or pastor, is not to be “a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1Timothy 3:6). The devil fell into condemnation because he was lifted up with pride. He refused to submit to the will of the Father, lost his first estate, and has taken many of the angels with him.
His “tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth” (Revelation 12:4).
The angels do not have a sin nature. We have one because of our descent from Adam. All angels have been directly created by God and must have been created with a holy nature. Therefore, they never have the mix of good and bad often found in men. However, they were created with the ability and responsibility of self-determination. They can choose to leave the estate of heaven by an act of will. Or, they can choose to stay with God. Those who leave, do so in order to be gods. Satan is the “the god of this world” (2Corinthians 4:4). Satan’s motivation is further revealed in his temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden. He told them, “and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). That is what moved him to rebel and that is what he used on Eve.
Understanding this helps with another verse. 1Corinthians 11:10 states, “For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.” The passage in 1Corinthians is dealing with the outward submission of the woman. Her external act of submission is important “because of the angels.” I take that to mean that ladies who submit to their husbands, not because he is any better than her but simply because it is God’s way, provide an excellent example to the angels in heaven. If she can submit to her husband with all his faults and problems, then certainly the angels should be able to submit to the Holy God.
Angels are made up of tiers: Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones in the first hierarchy. In the second are the Dominations, Virtues and Powers. The third is composed of Principalities, Archangels and Angels
The Lord be with you.
The sin of pride is a direct results of one using free will to attain that sin. Sorry, but I missed quotes of the denominations input.
Cousin deceased.
Yanks nearly.
Reds definitely.
I sure call on my guardian angel for intercession.
This is my cousin Frankie Taylor (pitcher) the day he signed with the Dodgers (Eberts Field). He was age 17, 5'10 and 140 pounds and threw the ball in excess of 90 (there were no jugg guns at the time so an estimate was done) This was in 1944 and he played one year in Zanesville, OH. Steve Lembo and Chuck Connors were on the team. The folloiwng winter he was drafted (Navy) and was wounded in the Pacific cutting short his career. He was signed by Branch Rickey, Jr. and Jake Pitler was the scout. I knew several of the New York area scouts. What was the name of your cousin (scout)?
Zinser.
It’s in Koufax’s book.
Also....he wasn’t New York area.
He was mid-west and tuned in to the Reds.
Like the Reds of today, they didn’t have an eye for pitchers then, either. They found him “too wild, no control.”
Position: P Full Name: William Francis Zinser
Born: January 6, 1918 Astoria,New York
Died: February 16, 1993 in Englewood,FL (75)
Height: 6-1 Weight: 185 Bats: R Throws: R
I note he is from Astoria. I spent many a day in Astoria. Played quite a few games against Whitey Ford in youth. Billy Loes was part of the gang also.
Ford’s father owned a bar on 34 St. and the name of the team was called the 34th Ave. Boys. I also played with Bob Grim at FK Lane HS. Ford was with Aviation High, Loes was with Bryant High and Frank Torre with James Madison. That era produced several good players.
Sorry wrong Zinser.
Correction: The street was 34th Ave not Street.
Good posting with you. God Bless You.
Right, He uses them. They serve Him, as they are some of His servants.
All of this ultimately gives glory to God because He created the Angels.
Using that rationalization, it should be okay to pray to Satan too, since God created him.
On a side note:Father John Hardon trusted practically everything he did in Eucharist. The majority of his wrings were done on his knees in front of exposition of Eucharist.
If someone who was a Gnostic got any of their revelations while they were on their knees in front of exposition of Eucharist, would you take their revelations as credible? I'm not saying that Father John Hardon is a Gnostic, but instead an asking you to tread with care in the area of Divine revelations.
He wasn't...They don't need no bible...
There are two obvious sources for authentic knowledge about the angels. They are divine revelation and the teaching of the Churchs tradition over the centuries.
Praying to the Angels is just wrong
The inspired author of the Psalms (103 and 148) didn't seem to think so.
If you don't talk to someone, and in fact dismiss talking to them as "just wrong," just how real are they to you? Do you guys even believe in angels anymore?
Praying for them isn't praying *to* them.
Hermas The Shepherd 3:5:4
[The Shepherd said:] But those who are weak and slothful in prayer, hesitate to ask anything from the Lord; but the Lord is full of compassion, and gives without fail to all who ask him. But you, [Hermas,] having been strengthened by the holy angel [you saw], and having obtained from him such intercession, and not being slothful, why do not you ask of the Lord understanding, and receive it from him?
Clement of Alexandria Miscellanies 7:12
In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer].
John Chrysostom Orations 8:6
When you perceive that God is chastening you, fly not to his enemies . . . but to his friends, the martyrs, the saints, and those who were pleasing to him, and who have great power [in God].
Your other remarks on exposition are senseless.
What is the point ? To discredit people who spend hours in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament?
Are you having a bad day or something?
I pray for you to be at peace!
You mean this:
Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. (Psalms 103:20 KJV)
That is hardly an invitation to "pray to the angels" as suggested by the author of article.
Then you use this verse as authority to "pray to angels":
Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. (Psalms 148:2 KJV)
That is hardly a verse which exhorts us to pray to angels. Look at the next verses:
Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. (Psalms 148:3-4 KJV)
Do those verses really exhort us to pray to the Sun and the moon and the heavens and the waters?
If you use Psalm 148 as an exhortation to pray to angels, then you also have to use it as an exhortation to pray to the Sun and the Moon and the Oceans.
I don't think you want to go there. And I don't think it is wise to pray to anyone other than God through Christ and Christ alone.
Heed Origen's advice.
Gen. 20:17 - God responds to Abraham’s intercession and heals Abimelech, and also his wife and slaves
Psalm 34:7 the angel of the Lord delivers those who fear him.
Psalm 91:11 God will give His angels charge of you, to guard you in all your ways.
Psalm 103:20-21; 148:1-2 we praise the angels and ask for their assistance in doing Gods will.
Zech. 1:12-13 - an angel intercedes for those in Judea and God responds favorably.
Gen. 19:1 - Lot venerates the two angels in Sodom, bowing himself with his face to the ground.
Luke 1:28 - the angel Gabriel venerates Mary by declaring to her “Hail, full of grace.” The heavenly angel honors the human Mary, for her perfection of grace exceeds that of the angels.
Rev. 1:4 this verse shows that angels (here, the seven spirits) give grace and peace. Because grace and peace only come from God, the angels are acting as mediators for God.
Rev. 5:8 - the prayers of the saints (on heaven and earth) are presented to God by the angels and saints in heaven. This shows that the saints intercede on our behalf before God, and it also demonstrates that our prayers on earth are united with their prayers in heaven. (The 24 elders are said to refer to the people of God perhaps the 12 tribes and 12 apostles - and the four living creatures are said to refer to the angels.)
from scripturecatholic.com
I figured you couldn't have come up with that by yourself.
We pray to the angels to take up our prayers to God.
Which Angels do you pray to?
Gen. 19:1 - Lot venerates the two angels in Sodom, bowing himself with his face to the ground.
Lot did a lot of stupid things. But the bowing there is nothing more than an oriental greeting, respect, not veneration, not adoration, just a fine how do you do.
I have 2000 plus years of Apostolic succession and the testimonies of the Saints on my side.
What do you have? Self pride and 500 years of history of the prideful reformers who would have liked to kill the Saints for their belief just like the Romans did.
Dear Brother,you really should read the lives of the early Saints who were persecuted,brutally tortured and killed for belief in such things like Sacraments.
You might have a different perspective on things if you do this.
“Which Angels do you pray to?”
Intercession of Saint Michael,Saint Gabriel and Saint Raphael and my Guardian Angel.
Here is something about them
Michael, Gabriel and Raphael are called “saints” because they are holy. But they are different from the rest of the saints because they were not human. They are angels. They are protectors of human beings and we know something about each of them from the Bible.
Michael’s name means “who is like God?” Three books of the Bible speak of St. Michael: Daniel, Revelation and the Letter of Jude. In the book of Revelation or the Apocalypse, chapter 12:7-9, we read of a great war that went on in heaven. Michael and his angels battled with Satan. Michael became the champion of loyalty to God. We can ask St. Michael to make us strong in our love for Jesus and in our practice of the Catholic religion.
Gabriel’s name means “the power of God.” He, too, is mentioned in the book of Daniel. He has become familiar to us because Gabriel is an important person in Luke’s Gospel. This archangel announced to Mary that she was to be the mother of our savior. Gabriel announced to Zechariah that he and St. Elizabeth would have a son and call him John. Gabriel is the announcer, the communicator of the Good News. We can ask him to help us be good communicators as he was.
Raphael’s name means “God has healed.” We read the touching story of Raphael’s role in the Bible’s book of Tobit. He brought protection and healing to the blind Tobit. At the very end of the journey, when all was completed, Raphael revealed his true identity. He called himself one of the seven who stands before God’s throne. We can ask St. Raphael to protect us in our travels, even for short journeys, like going to school. We can also ask him to help when illness strikes us or someone we love.
We can say a short prayer to these three archangels often throughout the day:
St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, be with me today. Protect me from whatever could cause spiritual or physical harm. Help me be faithful to Jesus and a good communicator of his divine love. Amen.
We also have this prayer said in Mass called The Confiteor
"I confess to Almighty God,
and to your my brothers
and sisters,
that I have sinned
through my own fault,
in my thoughts
and in my words,
in what I have done,
and in what I have failed to do;
and I ask blessed Mary,
ever virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me
to the Lord our God.
Amen."
Beautiful! don’t you think?
Mother Teresa’s United Nations Prayer
(Mother Teresa composed this prayer for the United Nations International Year of the Family)
"Heavenly Father, you have given us a model of life in the Holy Family of Nazareth. Help us, O loving Father to make our family another Nazareth where love, peace and joy reign. May it be deeply contemplative, intensely Eucharistic and vibrant with joy. Help us to stay together in joy and sorrow through family prayer. Teach us to see Jesus in the members of our family especially in their distressing disguise. May the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus make our hearts meek and humble like His and help us to carry out our family duties in a holy way. May we love one another as God loves each one of us more and more each day, and forgive each other’s faults as You forgive our sins. Help us, O loving Father to take whatever You give and to give whatever You take with a big smile. Immaculate Heart of Mary, cause of our joy, pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. Holy Guardian Angels be always with us, guide and protect us. Amen."
Do you really have a problem with people praying like this?
Do you think Mother Teresa offended Jesus in any way in this prayer?
I wish you a peaceful evening!
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