On September 29th of each year, the Church celebrates the feast of the Archangels. Although angels have been theologically out of fashion in recent years, they continue to play in important part in popular piety and spirituality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what is an angel?\u00a0 There is so much misinformation and fanciful speculation about angels that a look at the Catholic understanding of these creatures might be helpful.\u00a0 First of all, angels are spiritual beings created by God to do his will.\u00a0 They are not the souls of the faithful departed, and when we get to heaven, we do not become angels.\u00a0 Angels are different from humans in two very important respects:\u00a0 Angels do not possess physical bodies, and angels have no free will.\u00a0 Although they are often depicted by artists as having wings and halos, or as pudgy little cherubs, angels have no physical form, so they don’t actually look like anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Accounts of angels appear throughout the Bible.\u00a0 Often they are God’s messengers, as in the scene of the Annunciation in Luke’s Gospel, where an archangel appears to Mary and tells her that she will bear the messiah, if she’s willing.\u00a0 Angels are often depicted as ministers of God’s mercy and compassion, and often they fight against the forces of evil.\u00a0 In some places in the scriptures, there\u00eds not much distinction between the actions of the angels, and of God himself, as in the scene of Jacob wrestling with God.\u00a0 Or was it an angel?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the middle ages, many writers were very interested in angels, and they compiled fanciful works purporting to list the various ranks and names of the angels.\u00a0 Oddly enough, there are plenty of similar books for sale today, and they’re just as imaginative.\u00a0 The church has said very little about angels in its formal teaching capacity.\u00a0 The most important thing to remember about angels is that they are a manifestation of God’s love and care for us.\u00a0 We can’t say too much more than that, and we really don’t need to. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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On September 29th of each year, the Church celebrates the feast of the Archangels. Although angels have been theologically out of fashion in recent years, they continue to play in important part in popular piety and spirituality. So what is an angel?\u00a0 There is so much misinformation and fanciful speculation about angels that a look at the Catholic understanding of these creatures might be … Continue reading Angels<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts-of-faith","tag-facts-of-faith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5FUlW-angels","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}