The Angels

Angels are spirits created by God, without bodies, endowed with intelligence and will. They stand before him in adoration and carry his messages to men. The word itself says it: “angel” comes from the Greek angelos (ἄγγελος), the messenger. Scripture names them from its first pages to its last, witnesses of the invisible world that God created together with the visible.

Created spirits

Angels are creatures: they began to be, like everything that is not God. “By him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible.” Colossians 1:16 They are pure spirits, without matter or body, and for that reason they do not die. Each is a person: he knows and he loves, with an intelligence keener and a will firmer than ours. When Scripture lends them wings or a face, it speaks in images, to make perceptible what escapes the senses.

An ordered multitude

Angels are innumerable. Before the throne of God presses a crowd that no one can count: “Thousands upon thousands served him, myriads stood before him.” Daniel 7:10 This multitude is set out in degrees, which tradition calls the choirs of angels, from the Seraphim and the Cherubim who stand nearest to God to the angels sent to men. Scripture gives the name of three of them: Michael, who fights for God, Gabriel, who announces, and Raphael, who accompanies and heals.

Before God and beside men

The first work of the angels is adoration. Turned toward God, they sing his holiness without end: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is filled with his glory.” Isaiah 6:3 From this praise they pass to service: God sends them to carry his word and to accomplish his design. Gabriel is sent to Mary to announce to her the Saviour. And this service extends to us: “Are they not all spirits in the service of God, sent for those who are to inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1:14

The guardian angel

To each one, God gives an angel to keep him. Christ says it of the little ones: “Their angels in heaven continually see the face of my Father.” Matthew 18:10 This angel watches, wards off evil, enlightens and sustains, and carries our prayers before God: “He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:11 A discreet and constant presence, he accompanies each life, from birth to the meeting with God.

The trial and the fall

Like man, the angels were created good and free, and called to choose God. Not all of them chose him. One of the greatest rose against his Creator, refusing to serve, willing to make himself God’s equal, and he drew after him a part of the angels. Scripture shows it by the dragon whose tail sweeps the sky: “His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth.” Revelation 12:4 These fallen stars are the angels who fell with him. Then comes the battle, and the defeat of the rebel: “There was a battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought the dragon… and the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, the seducer of the whole world.” Revelation 12:7-9 These fallen spirits are the demons; their chief is Satan, whose name means the accuser. “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” Luke 10:18

A choice without return

The fault of the angels is without return, and it is their very manner of knowing and choosing that makes it so. We men know little by little: through the senses, through reasoning, discovering one thing after another; this is why we change our minds, when time shows us what we had not yet seen. A pure spirit does not know in this way: he does not learn by fragments, he grasps at a single glance, whole and all at once, what he knows. His will follows this complete knowledge: he chooses already knowing all that his choice involves, with nothing left hidden that could later make him turn back. Now to go back on a choice requires one of two springs: to see what one had not seen, or to change with time. The angel has neither. His first choice is therefore his definitive choice, not because God would forbid him to repent, but because nothing can any longer move him to it. The faithful angels are thus fixed forever in the light; the fallen, in their refusal, and these are the demons. They keep a power, but limited and already conquered: they tempt and accuse without being able to compel. The Cross of Christ has broken their empire, and their end is fixed: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matthew 25:41