Feast day: October 2

Holy Guardian Angels

Memorial

Patron of —

The feast of the angels assigned to guard each person — a belief rooted in Christ's own words: 'their angels always behold the face of my Father.'

The feast of the Guardian Angels, kept on October 2, celebrates the ancient Christian belief that God in his providence assigns to each human soul an angel to guard, guide, and protect it on the journey through life. It is a feast not of any one saint but of the unseen companions whom the faithful believe walk beside them from birth to death.

The belief is rooted in Scripture. The Book of Exodus tells of an angel sent to guard Israel on the way; the Psalms promise that God 'will give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways'; the Book of Tobit tells the story of the angel Raphael who guides and protects the young Tobias; and Jesus himself, speaking of children, warns, 'See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven always behold the face of my Father.'

On this foundation the Fathers and theologians of the Church developed the rich teaching of the guardian angel — a pure spirit who enlightens the mind toward what is good, moves the heart toward virtue, guards against spiritual and bodily harm, and carries the soul's prayers toward God, all while leaving the person entirely free.

Though devotion to the guardian angels is very old, the feast spread widely only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was at last fixed for the whole Church on October 2. It expresses a tender and consoling truth of the faith: that no one walks through life alone, and that the vast unseen world of God's angels is bent, in love, upon the care of even the least of his children.

The Church teaches every single person — believer or not — has a guardian angel. You have never once been alone.

Image: Bernhard Plockhorst (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/07050a.htm