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” translates the Hebrew mal’ak (מַלְאָךְ) and the Greek angelos (ἄγγελος), which both mean the messenger. Saint Augustine makes it precise: “spirit” names what they are, “angel” what they do; the name angel designates an office, not a nature. 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. “in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible: Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers. All things were created through him and for him.” Colossians 1:16 That God created the invisible world as well as the visible is a point of faith: the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, defined it, teaching that God, from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creature, the spiritual and the corporeal, the angelic and the earthly. Angels 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. Having no matter to set them apart as men are set apart from one another, the angels are not divided into individuals of one species: each differs from every other as much as one species differs from another, and none has its like. This is why their multitude is beyond number, and each angel unique. 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 upon myriads stood before him.” Daniel 7:10 This multitude is set out in degrees. From the names scattered through Scripture, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, tradition, following Dionysius the Areopagite and Saint Thomas Aquinas, recognized nine choirs set out in three hierarchies: nearest to God, the Seraphim, the Cherubim and the Thrones; then the Dominations, the Virtues and the Powers; finally the Principalities, the Archangels and the Angels, turned toward the government of the world and the service of men. Scripture gives the name of three of them, and each name tells a mission. Michael, in Hebrew mikael (מִיכָאֵל), “Who is like God?”, fights for God (Revelation 12:7); Gabriel, gabriel (גַּבְרִיאֵל), “strength of God”, carries the announcements (Daniel 8:16); Raphael, refael (רְפָאֵל), “God heals”, accompanies and heals (Tobit 12:15). The Church therefore discourages the forging of others, as a council held at Rome in 745 and, in our day, the Directory on Popular Piety recalled.

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 This praise the Church makes her own at every Mass, when she joins her voice to that of the angels to sing the Sanctus; the psalm invites her to it: “Bless the Lord, you his angels, mighty heroes who carry out his word.” Psalm 103:20 From this praise the angels pass to service: God sends them to carry his word and to accomplish his design. Among these messengers, Scripture sets apart one who is no mere envoy: the angel of the Lord, who speaks and acts as God himself and bears the divine Name within him. “my name is in him.” Exodus 23:21 Tradition recognizes in him a manifestation of the Word before he became flesh, more than one of the created angels. Gabriel is sent to Mary to announce to her the Saviour (Luke 1:26). The angels serve Christ himself: in the desert, after the temptation, they came and ministered to him (Matthew 4:11), and at Gethsemane an angel came to strengthen him (Luke 22:43). And this service unfolds for us too: “Are they not all spirits charged with a service, sent out for the good of those who are to inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1:14 The honour we render them remains a veneration, not an adoration: an angel himself raised up John who fell down before him, “Do not do that! … Worship God!” Revelation 22:9; and Paul warns against “the worship of angels.” Colossians 2:18 We honour them and ask their help; adoration belongs to God alone.

The guardian angel

To each one, God gives an angel to keep him. Christ says it of the little ones: “their angels in heaven always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 18:10 This angel watches, wards off evil, enlightens and sustains, and carries our prayers before God: “He will command his angels to guard you on 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 be like God by his own power; his fault was pride, that root of which Scripture says: “the beginning of pride is sin.” Sirach 10:13 He drew after him a part of the angels. Scripture shows it by the dragon whose tail sweeps the sky: “Its tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and hurled them to the earth.” Revelation 12:4 By these fallen stars, Scripture figures the angels who fell with him, without fixing their number. Then comes the battle, and the defeat of the rebel: “Then there was a battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon… He was hurled down, the great dragon, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, the one who leads the whole world astray.” Revelation 12:7-9 His two names say what he is: the Hebrew word rendered “Satan”, satan (שָׂטָן), names the adversary, the accuser; the Greek word rendered “devil”, diabolos (διάβολος), the one who divides and slanders.

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. Saint Thomas Aquinas gave the reason for it. 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, where they enjoy without end the vision of God; the fallen, for their part, are fixed in their refusal: these are the demons. They are someone, not something: real persons, angels once good and forever turned away, not the symbol of evil nor a manner of speaking. Scripture gives them as such, and the Church holds their existence for certain: “Your adversary, the devil, prowls like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 They keep a power, but limited and already conquered: they tempt and accuse without being able to compel. Before them the Christian yields neither to fear nor to fascination: he resists them by prayer, the sacraments and the name of Christ, sure of their defeat. The Cross of Christ has broken their empire: “now the prince of this world is about to be cast out.” John 12:31 And their end is sealed: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matthew 25:41