Feast of the Guardian AngelsUnless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)
If you read the rest of the verses in chapter 18, you learn that Christ's reference to children actually applies to all those who remain innocent of this world's sinful ways, who hear and obey God's Word as does a good child who trusts in his parents and lovingly accepts their greater wisdom.
Children like structure, and need and desire enforcement. They need guidance, and expect the adults around them to give it to them. When it is lacking, they act out. So perhaps the humility of which Jesus speaks is more the realization that we as adults also need guidance, and welcome it. Maybe this guidance, in addition to that from our communities of faith, and our families, comes also in the form of an occasional gentle nudge from our guardian angel. There’s one big difference, though. Our guardian angel offers each of us guidance even when our own communities and families let us down.
However, if we assume that our guardian angels exist to protect us from our own bad decisions, we are mistaken. They are not our slaves. They exist, like all beings, to serve the Lord. That’s the Good News: that our guardian angels serve the Lord, not us. They are not here to enable our bad behavior. They are here, like all beings, to promote the Kingdom of God, for the coming of the Kingdom. To think that they serve us is to entirely miss the point about how God works in our world to create salvation.
In later verses Jesus reveals that His followers—“children such as these”—are in danger, because the "worldly" sometimes violently resent all who contradict their views and behavior, discredit their beliefs and character and tempt them to sin. But Christ reassures us that Angels are eternally praying before God for the protection of these "little ones." And, two thousand years later, God's Word is still being maligned by those who claim that religion curtails human freedom by imposing questionable moral standards upon us.
Children like structure, and need and desire enforcement. They need guidance, and expect the adults around them to give it to them. When it is lacking, they act out. So perhaps the humility of which Jesus speaks is more the realization that we as adults also need guidance, and welcome it. Maybe this guidance, in addition to that from our communities of faith, and our families, comes also in the form of an occasional gentle nudge from our guardian angel. There’s one big difference, though. Our guardian angel offers each of us guidance even when our own communities and families let us down.
However, if we assume that our guardian angels exist to protect us from our own bad decisions, we are mistaken. They are not our slaves. They exist, like all beings, to serve the Lord. That’s the Good News: that our guardian angels serve the Lord, not us. They are not here to enable our bad behavior. They are here, like all beings, to promote the Kingdom of God, for the coming of the Kingdom. To think that they serve us is to entirely miss the point about how God works in our world to create salvation.
In later verses Jesus reveals that His followers—“children such as these”—are in danger, because the "worldly" sometimes violently resent all who contradict their views and behavior, discredit their beliefs and character and tempt them to sin. But Christ reassures us that Angels are eternally praying before God for the protection of these "little ones." And, two thousand years later, God's Word is still being maligned by those who claim that religion curtails human freedom by imposing questionable moral standards upon us.
These are usually the people who claim they don’t believe in “organized” religion.Usually they also are those who refuse to acknowledge that there exists a wisdom far greater than theirs, and that divine wisdom seeks only to protect all people from practices that devalue human life and demolish healthy societal structures such as marriage and the family.
In consequence, we are now "free" to divorce, cohabitate, fornicate, abort, euthanize and create and destroy human life for research, all under the buzz-word “tolerance.” Today's worship of "self" reduces man to mere savage beasts who allow only their most devious and powerful to survive. Thank God for His wisdom in giving each of us "caretakers" to remind us of our fortune.
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