Last Friday, October 2, the Church celebrated the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. It is one of those celebrations that can easily pass unnoticed because angels have become so familiar to us. We see their images in churches, homes, prayer cards and religious articles. We learned as children to pray, “Angel of God, my guardian dear,” and many of us still know the prayer by heart. Yet behind that simple childhood devotion lies a profound truth of our faith. God, in His providence, does not leave us alone in our journey through life.
The feast brought back to me an experience I had some years ago when I attended a retreat in Davao City sponsored by the Alliance of the Holy Family International. Our retreat masters included priests known here and abroad, among them Fr. Edgardo Arellano, associated with EWTN, and Fr. Alessandro Olivieri Pennesi, an Italian priest and professor in Rome.
What made that retreat quite unusual for me was the company I found myself in. Many of my fellow priest-delegates were exorcists from different parts of the country. Apparently, whatever Satan might have found in me remained in silent mode throughout the retreat because none of them attempted to exorcise me.
Much of the retreat naturally dealt with spiritual warfare, temptation, evil and the extraordinary ministry of exorcism. I listened to priests recount experiences that were sometimes frightening and difficult to imagine. I could not fully relate to some of their stories because I have never personally encountered what I could identify as a case of diabolical possession. Perhaps that is something for which I should be grateful. I certainly have no desire to meet the devil personally just to prove that he exists.
Yet those discussions left me with a question. If demons seek to lead human beings away from God, where are our Guardian Angels in this battle? Certainly, they do not abandon us. Neither are they asleep while the devil is busy tempting us. Our Guardian Angels remain faithful to the mission God has entrusted to them. The better question is whether we still listen to the voice that leads us toward what is good.
I have always had a particular fondness for angels. Sometimes I imagine how wonderful it would be if there were a very powerful prayer that could command our Guardian Angels to watch over us twenty four hours a day, guard us while awake and asleep, and fight every devil that attempts to lead us into sin. Then I realized something. They are already doing their part. The problem is that our Guardian Angels cannot make our moral choices for us.
There lies the heart of the matter. The struggle between good and evil is not simply some spectacular battle outside us, with angels on one side and demons on the other. The real battlefield is the human heart. The devil may tempt us, but temptation does not automatically become sin. Our Guardian Angel may guide us toward what is right, but an angel cannot force us to obey. God Himself respects the freedom He has given us. Grace invites. Temptation entices. Conscience warns. We decide.
Perhaps this is also why we should not become too fascinated with extraordinary manifestations of evil. The devil does not always need frightening voices, strange movements or dramatic possessions. Sometimes evil works very quietly.
A hatred we refuse to surrender. A lie we continue to justify. An addiction we no longer resist. A grudge we carefully preserve. An injustice we tolerate because it benefits us. A sinful relationship we refuse to leave. A wrongdoing repeated so often that eventually our conscience no longer recognizes it as wrong. Sometimes the most dangerous evil is the one that no longer frightens us.
One insight shared during that retreat particularly struck me. Fr. Arellano spoke about how shame can be manipulated in the spiritual life. Before committing sin, we sometimes lose the shame that should have restrained us. After committing it, when we begin thinking about confession, shame suddenly returns. Before sin, temptation whispers, Everybody does it. There is nothing wrong with it. After sin, another voice whispers, Do not confess it. It is too shameful. What will the priest think of you? Clever, isn’t it? Shame disappears when it could have prevented the sin and returns when it could prevent the confession. The serpent apparently has not needed to change his strategy very much since Eden.
This is why the Sacrament of Reconciliation is itself a powerful act of spiritual resistance. Evil wants sin to remain hidden in darkness. Confession brings it into the light of God’s mercy. Shame tells us that we are too sinful to come back. Christ tells us that sincere repentance always has a way home.
We therefore need not become obsessed with demonic possession. There are other forms of enslavement that are far more common. A person does not need to levitate to be controlled by hatred. He does not have to speak in strange voices to destroy another person with lies. His body does not need to convulse for greed, pride, envy, lust or dishonesty to rule his life. These ordinary victories of evil should concern us more precisely because we can easily learn to live with them.
Angels and demons are realities of our Christian faith. Yet neither angels nor demons decide our eternal destiny for us. Angels lead us toward God. Demons entice us away from Him. Between them stands the human person, endowed by God with reason, conscience, grace and freedom. We choose whom we will follow.
As we remembered our Guardian Angels last Friday, perhaps we should also remember the simple lesson behind the feast. We should not spend our lives terrified of demons. We should be more afraid of becoming comfortable with sin. Stay close to God. Pray. Receive the Sacraments. Go to confession. Listen to your conscience while it can still disturb you. Ask your Guardian Angel to accompany you especially when the choices before you become difficult.
The greatest battles between good and evil may never involve frightening voices, extraordinary manifestations or dramatic exorcisms. Most of them are fought silently within us whenever we must choose between truth and lies, forgiveness and hatred, humility and pride, fidelity and betrayal, goodness and sin.
The devil does not win simply because he tempts us. The angel does not win simply because he warns us. The battle is decided when we choose. May our Guardian Angels never grow tired of leading us toward what is good, and may we never grow tired of listening to them.
Angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom God’s love commits me here,
ever this day be at my side,
to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.
Mary, Queen of Angels, pray for us.