October 2, 2021, Memorial of the Guardian Angels
Saturday, 26th Week in Ordinary Time
Bar 4:5-12,27-29
Ps 69
Lk 10:17-24
The main theme of the texts of today's celebration is consolation, whose fruit is joy: the prophet Baruch, who had announced to the people their sins, their departure from God and the consequent punishment, now becomes a messenger of consolation and hope:
Fear not, my people! Remember, Israel, you were sold to the nations not for your destruction; it was because you angered God that you were handed over to your foes. For you provoked your Maker with sacrifices to demons, to no-gods; you forsook the Eternal God who nourished you, and you grieved Jerusalem who fostered you. She indeed saw coming upon you the anger of God; and she said: “Hear, you neighbors of Zion! God has brought great mourning upon me, for I have seen the captivity that the Eternal God has brought upon my sons and daughters. With joy I fostered them; but with mourning and lament I let them go. Let no one gloat over me, a widow, bereft of many: for the sins of my children I am left desolate, because they turned from the law of God. Fear not, my children; call out to God! He who brought this upon you will remember you. As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God, turn now ten times the more to seek him; for he who has brought disaster upon you will, in saving you, bring you back enduring joy.”
The responsorial psalm is a hymn of jubilation for the consolation that God, in his mercy, offers to the poor:
“See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive! For the Lord hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurn not. Let the heavens and the earth praise him, the seas and whatever moves in them!” For God will save Zion, and rebuild the cities of Judah. They shall dwell in the land and own it, and the descendants of his servants shall inherit it, and those who love his name shall inhabit it.
God knows well that the fragility of the human heart makes it impossible for his children to live unless there is hope and joy. Therefore, he gives orders to his messengers to bring them words of encouragement, alternating reproaches with invitations to rejoice. He invites them to contemplate a future of well-being and peace, which is only a foreshadowing of the salvation and of the eternal joy when the saved will enter into the fullness of Trinitarian joy wherein God will be all in all.
In the beautiful passage from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus participates in the joy of the seventy-two disciples who return triumphant from the mission and who, with naive pride, tell him of their victory over the demons. He certainly shares the happiness of his people because, in his name, the defeat of the demons has also begun through them. He then he immediately affirms his victory over evil and the power that he has given to his disciples to overcome the adversary’s craftiness:
The seventy [-two] disciples returned rejoicing, and said to Jesus, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.” Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.” (Lk 10:17-19).
But right after that, with great realism, he teaches them: he invites them back to the joy that can never be taken away from them. This is not joy of momentary success, of their affirmation, their adversary’s submission, or of the suffering that will certainly come, but rather that joy that remains forever as a result of their names being written in heaven. What joy to find they are loved by God with an unfailing love, that they are already saved by his power, and that they are no longer foreigners or guests, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s family! United with Christ, who became their brother in the Incarnation, made sons and daughters in the Son, they have the privilege of participating in his very mission, in the mission that the Father has given to the Son, though not void of failure, pain or death – just as it was for him:
Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven (Lk 10:20).
There follows a magnificent scene, in which Jesus presents himself to the disciples in all the beauty of his divine humanity: he testifies to the infinite love he has for the Father and, at the same time, the patient and merciful love he has for his disciples, the tenderness with which he looks at them in their fragility and weakness:
At that very moment he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” (Lk 10:21-22).
We Christians, to whom this revelation has been granted, have the task of continuing the Son's mission and conforming ourselves to him, according to the vocation we have each received. Our task includes accepting with felicity all sufferings intertwined with joy that every human existence entails, rooted in Baptism and therefore saved, fruit of Christ's resurrection.
The motive for this great hope, security and joy in the success of such a simple, yet so difficult a task, is the fact that from the beginning until the hour of death, human life is surrounded by the protection and intercession of angels (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 336). True missionaries to humanity, angels announce the great mysteries of salvation, travel alongside us through difficulties, fight with the devil - and overcome him. They are a concrete sign of God's concern for our daily life, with its regular worries, whether small or large, and its everyday joys and sufferings.
As Pope Francis writes in his Message to the Pontifical Mission Societies of May 21, 2020, God is near to us in our life “in progress”, he makes himself close to us in our everyday endeavors, our affections and our needs. He takes care of us concretely.
Jesus met his first disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee while they were focused on their work. He did not meet them at a convention, a training workshop, or in the Temple. It has always been the case that the proclamation of Jesus’ salvation reaches people right where they are and just how they are in the midst of their lives in progress. Amid the needs, hopes and problems of everyday life we find the place where one who has acknowledged the love of Christ and received the gift of the Holy Spirit can offer an account of his or her faith, hope, and charity to those who ask for it. By journeying together with others, alongside everyone. Especially given the times in which we live, this has nothing to do with designing “specialized” training programs, creating parallel worlds, or constructing “slogans” that merely echo our own thoughts and concerns. I have elsewhere spoken of those in the Church who proclaim loudly that “this is the hour of the laity”, while in the meantime the clock seems to have stopped.
An angel’s presence near to each of us, sent by God to enlighten us, to guard us, to support us and to govern us, helps to ensure that we might reach safely that state of supreme and definitive happiness to which God calls us: life that will have no end, with Mary, the Angels and Saints, the vision of God “face to face”, the communion of love with the Holy Trinity (cf. Compendium of the Catechism, 209).
Therefore, given that each Christian has an angel at their side, as their protector and shepherd, on this second day of October, the Church invites us to remember our guardian angels, faithful servants and messengers of God, in carrying out their salvific mission for all mankind (cf. Compendium of the Catechism, 60-61).
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot and mystical theologian of the Cistercian monastic order, comments in a sermon on a phrase from Psalm 91: “he commands his angels with regard to you, to guard you wherever you go.” (Ps 91:11), helping us to reflect on who the angels are and inviting us to thank the Lord for his mercy and wonders towards the children of men:
Let them give thanks and say among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. O Lord, what is man that you have made yourself known to him, or why do you incline your heart to him? And you do incline your heart to him; you show him your care and your concern. Finally, you send your only Son and the grace of your Spirit, and promise him a vision of your countenance.
And so, that nothing in heaven should be wanting in your concern for us, you send those blessed spirits to serve us, assigning them as our guardians and our teachers. “He has given his angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways.” These words should fill you with respect, inspire devotion and instill confidence; respect for the presence of angels, devotion because of their loving service, and confidence because of their protection. And so the angels are here; they are at your side, they are with you, present on your behalf. They are here to protect you and to serve you.
But even if it is God who has given them this charge, we must nonetheless be grateful to them for the great love with which they obey and come to help us in our great need. So let us be devoted and grateful to such great protectors; let us return their love and honor them as much as we can and should.
Yet all our love and honor must go to him, for it is from him that they receive all that makes them worthy of our love and respect.
We should then, my brothers, show our affection for the angels, for one day they will be our co-heirs just as here below they are our guardians and trustees appointed and set over us by the Father. […]
With such protectors what have we to fear? They who keep us in all our ways cannot be overpowered or led astray, much less lead us astray. They are loyal, prudent, powerful. Why then are we afraid? We have only to follow them, stay close to them, and we shall dwell under the protection of God’s heaven (Sermo 12 in psalmum Qui habitat,3, 6-8; Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc 4:[1966], 458-462)
We can only add to the words of the holy abbot of Clairvaux a practical exhortation: as far as it is granted to us by God and is possible, let us continue the mission of our heavenly messengers and let us also become 'angels' for our brothers and sisters. This concept lies amongst our simple faith and our everyday language when in fact, someone who performs a service of consolation, defense or accompaniment towards another or others is called an “angel”. The angels and the saints are in fact the most successful missionaries.