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24 responses to “Prayer to My Guardian Angel – A Post Revisited”

1. 

   AR

   October 3, 2007

   I think there are a number of reasons people would click on this title.

   We’ve heard that angels can help; now you’re telling us we can ask them to. New idea for a LOT of us.

   Also, some people would be scandalized at the idea of ‘praying’ to anyone beside God, unaware of the varied meanings that word can bear. Worship as to God, worship as to creatures – two distinct practices that, in the Greek but not always in the English, have two distinct words. A lot of people don’t know that.

   Next, Protestants are increasingly denying the idea that there is a guardian angel for each Christian because it can’t be conclusively proved from scripture. (The reference to Peter’s angel in Acts is dismissed as the lingering superstition of Jewish converts.) So you’re offering credible assurance that yes, the angels are there, combined with this unique idea of interacting with that angel according to a proper form. (I appreciated your original advice to the teenager about not asking to see the angel because you might see something else.) It’s very lonely out there and there’s a lot of religious sludge and people want someone to tell them this.

   Finally, I think this post is blessed.

   Especially for those of us without a sacramental experience, though we know God is everywhere it’s difficult to make him seem HERE in any appreciable sense. The idea of a personal, pure, limited being indwelt by God’s presence and help for us individually, here in the same sense I am here, is very attractive. In my own case, when I first read this post a while back I dared to address a few words to…well, you know who. For the next few weeks, EVERY prayer I made was answered immediately and tangibly. Like a tutorial, it reordered my understanding of how God’s kindness works for us – though it’s through intermediaries that does not in any way decrease God’s presence or accessiblity. He burns in another’s love for me. It opened up the possibility of saints…and many other things.

2. 

   Steven Paul

   October 4, 2007

   Fr. Stephen, can you email me “off blog”?
   Steve

3. 

   Trevor

   October 4, 2007

   Besides the general interest in guardian angels, I know personally I liked your son’s prayer. (I have a four-year-old myself, and with his recent fascination with monsters in the woods, I might have to teach it to him.) I’m not sure if I’ve made a return visit to read it again, but I easily could have.

4. 

   fatherstephen

   October 4, 2007

   Of course this was written over six months before I started by one-storey universe series. Apparently many people believed there were such things as described in the Bible, but confined them to the second storey, thus effectively making their existence theoretical and problematic. Prayer to saints and angels, etc., starts knocking holes in the floor, and maybe even eliminates the whole second storey thing altogether.

   The lonely universe of a Christian in a secular world seems to be a worthy target of destruction. “It is not good for man to be alone,” our Creator said, and I think he had more than Eve in mind when He said it. The Church sings (from the Septuagint Psalms) “God is wonderful in His saints, the God of Israel!” We hardly make a move in an Orthodox Liturgy without asking for the company of angels as we do it. In my experience they seem to stand very still and make very little audible noise. But I greatly appreciate their presence. Christ cannot be sacramentally on the altar and not be surrounded by myriads of angels. They just couldn’t bear the thought of not crowding around Him, the Lord of Sabaoth.

   I am thorougly convinced that it is only a thin veil in our heart, though quite hard, that prevents our seeing what’s actually going on around us.

   Princess Ileana of Romania, later to be Mother Alexandra of Holy Transfiguration in Ellwood City, saw her guardian angel at her bed when she was a young child. Her small book on angels as absolutely the best-written, most comprehensive book that I know of in English, without a hint of new age silliness. I recommend it if it’s still in print.

5. Prayer to My Guardian Angel and Some Other Thoughts « Glory to God for All Things

   October 4, 2007

   […] For an update and additional comments on this article see angels. […]

6. 

   AR

   October 4, 2007

   Thanks, I’ll see if I can find that book. Yes, I think you are right that this sort of ‘foreshadowed’ the one-storey series (which has been wonderful and which I’m still working to understand.) This post is one of those “crux” ideas where a lot of issues intersect, a lot of knots begin to be untangled.

   Do you think saints and angels can hear if you pray silently? How is it that saints can hear prayers at all if they are not omnipresent like God? Must you use an icon? If so, how did people figure out how to use the icons that way?

   We’re looking forward to your catechism.

7. 

   fatherstephen

   October 4, 2007

   “The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God.” If you will the ears of the saints have passed into dust with the rest of their body. What they hear and see now is solely by the Grace and Divine Energies of God. God, who is everywhere present and fillest all things, thus makes the saints, who are with Him, to be present as well.

   If God can hear our silent prayers, so can the saints. It is not necessary to use and icon, but it helps (us especially).

   In the experience of the Church we have learned that icons are “windows to heaven,” they “make present” what they represent, the Fathers taught. I can be real technical and note that the fathers taught that this presence is “hypostatic” rather than “substantial,” whereas in the Eucharist it is truly substantial. An icon is not a sacrament. The Eucharist truly becomes Christ’s body and blood. An icon does not become anything, but it makes present to us the person (hypostasis) that it represents.

   It’s a very subtle but important distinction. Wrote chapters on it when I was doing my degree at Duke. St. Theodore the Studite is perhaps the most important father in writing on this aspect. Sorry to be so obscure.

8. 

   Meg

   October 4, 2007

   Maybe the popularity of this post lies in your son’s prayer. I had forgotten about it, till I re-read it here. I don’t think any of the saints could top it.

9. 

   AR

   October 4, 2007

   Please don’t apologize, Father Stephen. Those distinctions are very important to me as my own schooling, such as it was, centered on the theological. I often need this level of explanation in order to fill out my understanding of a issue. (Though I very much appreciate the general, big picture explanations as well because they often get at the nature or essence of something and that sets the categories for more detailed discussion.) So go ahead, be ‘obscure.’ I’ll let you know when I get lost. 🙂

10. 

    Roland

    October 5, 2007

    The most-viewed post on my blog was the vulture post. At one time, that post accounted for about half my hits. With the help of Sitemeter, I determined that they were all coming from Google searches on turkey vulture. Every search on that term, in addition to the text links, would produce three images at the top of the page, and the vulture picture in my post was one of them. I’m not sure why Google was sending searchers to me instead of to the original source of the photo, but that’s what was happening. Since it was skewing my stats, I dropped that picture. A couple months later, after Google got around to updating its image links, then I restored the original vulture photo.

    I just did a Google image search on guardian angel icon, and a link to the image from your original guardian angel post showed up on the first page of results. Clicking on it brought me to that post on your blog.

11. 

    Andrew

    October 5, 2007

    If I may add to Fr. Stephen’s remarks, St. Gregory the Theologian said that in the process of theosis we ‘become by grace what God is by nature’. If this is true (and it is!), then of course the saints can be omnipresent, and of course they can hear even our silent prayers — they have become by grace what God is by nature.

    The Protestant flinches when he hears such things, most likely because he’s inherited a tradition that makes a distinction between the communicable attributes of God (i.e. love, holiness, etc.) and the incommunicable (omniscience, omnipotence, etc.). (Never mind the fact that this is a completely arbitrary distinction.) For the Westerner, the attributes of God are tied up with His essence, and therefore their impartation would amount to the communication of God’s very essence, which everybody agrees is absurd. Hence the gut reaction many have in presupposing that such an impartation makes the saints deities.

    But drop that Western understanding of God’s attributes, lay hold of the Eastern essence/energies distinction, and voilá! — problem solved.

12. 

    fatherstephen

    October 5, 2007

    Andrew,

    I would only note that what most Orthodox imagine by “become by grace what God is by nature,” might be almost too much. It is to exist in God who alone can give us life. I have become more and more cautious not to give the impression of a conferring of grace that somehow makes us independent of God, sort of “gods on our own.” You, of course, did not suggest that. But I fear that many people, not used to how the Orthodox understand the term “grace” hear us say something we are not saying.

13. 

    AR

    October 5, 2007

    Wait – so you two are saying I was wrong about an angel being a ‘limited’ being? Or is this just human holy ones? Sorry, I’m always a little suspicious of “voila” theological solutions. (Though I realize we’ve created many unnecessary problems by asking the wrong questions in the first place.)

    But how can God’s lack of limits be his grace or energies? Or is his ever-presence something more than merely a lack of limits? Is it a going forth from himself to fill everything – and he takes those he loves with him? But what about Incarnation and Atonement? Isn’t that what brought us near? Or was it to reconcile our turned nature to what was there all along?

    Yikes, I feel like I was going along a narrow path in the woods and suddenly I walk out into an open field, so sunny I don’t know what I’m looking at yet. Am I blathering like an idiot?

    Are you a convert, Andrew? Do you have ANY sympthy for converts?

14. 

    fatherstephen

    October 5, 2007

    AR,

    I’m sure he has sympathy, we must forgive each other much on the internet – it’s such a lousy place to communicate. You’re right God’s lack of limits is not just his grace or energies. But in Orthodox dogma we speak of His manifestation to us and encounter with us (outside the incarnation) as encounters with God in His energies or Grace, rather than with His essence. Incarnation and Atonement also draw us near and into union with Him, a union which continues to be brought about in us by His grace working within us.

    I think you’re doing fine.

15. 

    AR

    October 5, 2007

    Well then, he must forgive me as well, because I sometimes get tired of doing one of these. 😉 Yes, my “scolding” for Andrew was in jest; I was laughing at myself for being at a loss theologically, pretending to blame it on him. You are right, communication via the internet and so on.

    Well, thank you, I’ll keep studying and praying. God keep you.

16. 

    Andrew

    October 5, 2007

    Fr. Stephen,

    Of course. Grace is God Himself, God’s very energies, and therefore any notion of grace that leads to independence from Him is to be avoided.

    AR,

    Yes, I am a convert; or more accurately, I will be one next Pascha, for that’s when I’ll be received into the Church (Lord willing!). So yes, I definitely sympathize with those who are trying to grasp, to the best of their abilities, the Orthodox Faith. And to sing the praises of Fr. Stephen, this blog is a commendable place to do it. Fr. Stephen writes with a lucidity and attractive simplicity that keeps me, as I’m sure it does for everyone else, coming back again and again.

17. 

    Dean Arnold

    October 5, 2007

    See the last paragraph of this article:

    http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8S36RLG0&show_article=1

18. 

    fr john w fenton

    October 8, 2007

    Fr Stephen,

    In your opening comments you wrote yesterday it had more views on that day than on its first day.

    The “yesterday” you refer to was 2 October which, in the Western Rite, is the commemoration of the Holy Guardian Angels. Perhaps searches that day generated the views of your excellent post.

19. 

    Meg

    February 23, 2008

    I came across your site accidently and kept reading to see if you were going to quote the prayer I say to my guardian angel. I don’t remember not knowing this prayer and have said it since before I could read!

    “Angel of God, my guardian dear,
    To whom God’s love entrusts me here,
    Ever this day be at my side,
    to light and guard, to rule and guide.
    Amen.”

    It’s part of my “circle” of prayers I say at night when I can’t sleep or I’m feeling stressed.

20. 

    Amanda McDonald

    April 18, 2008

    I am Catholic and as a child I prayed for my angel with this one:
    “Angel of God, my guardian dear,
    to whom His love commits me here,
    ever this nights (day) be at my side,
    to light and guard,
    to rule and guide. Amen.”

21. 

    Sophia

    July 9, 2013

    Hello Father, and everyone else on here.

    I am a new convert to Orthodoxy, and still very much finding my feet. I recently read your book, and it is wonderful-it makes sense of so much. And I am so glad to have come ‘home’ to Orthodoxy-which is what it feels like more than ‘conversion’ (though I’m being converted more all the time!)

    I was not raised Christian, and when I became Christian I was Protestant, so I have no ingrained understanding of Saints and Angels. But I have started to try and pray to the Theotokos for the past year, and believe I have received her intercession in some wondrous ways. Most recently, I have started an Akathist to St. Nicholas. I need help with something very painful and so sought him out. I am (although only three days in) starting to feel reminded that the saints are REAL, not ‘symbolic’ (forgive me, I don’t mean to offend anyone, but coming from my background I would be more inclined to see them that way). It’s a life altering experience to begin to realize what it is to pray to a saint for their help. Can it really be true? I hope to God (and know the faith says so) that it is…but it’s a whole different experience from taking something ‘on faith’ to actually catching glimmers of the experience…

    That wondering also brought me to find this thread, because I realized I have no relationship at all (that I’m aware of) to my guardian angel (another new concept). I would like to develop one. Do you have any suggestions?

    Thank you so much. This is both wonderful and awe-inspiring.

    Sophia

    PS I LOVE your son’s prayer. It makes perfect sense to me!

22. 

    fatherstephen

    July 9, 2013

    Sophia,
    Thank you for this comment – your innocence and honesty are a joy. There is actually no better way to come to know the saints, to understand why we pray with them, to them, etc. than simply to do it. In the praying it is so clear that we are not putting them in the place of God – indeed, it has never felt that way to me – not even slightly. But it is in the prayers, and as you noted, “believe I have received her intercession in some wondrous ways…” , it is in the prayers that we come to know this. And coming to know it is so much different than thinking about it.

    The sweetness of the Mother of God and her tender care for us, touches me to the deepest place in my soul. It is the kind of thing that I’m often hesitant to say because it is so sweet and gentle that admitting an argument into that holy ground we be too profane (and thus it’s easier to discuss these things in a more abstract manner).

    My beloved wife has always taken the route of actually praying and not theologizing about it, and I sometimes stand in awe of the depth and tenderness of her relations with the saints. I sometimes tell new parishioners who want to know about the saints and prayer, “Go talk to Mother Beth.”

    I’ll share a brief story about the Akathist to St. Nicholas. My oldest daughter lived in Siberia back in the year 2000 (I think that’s right). She was in Krasnoyarsk for the year and there were far too few Churches still. So, there was a site where believers wanted a Church. So they would go each week out to the site and offer the Akathist to St. Nicholas. And the Church was built (it was one of those built by the state in reparation for the suffering of Christians under the Soviets). And the Church was then named for St. Nicholas.

    I remember when she told me the story while she was still there. So we organized a weekly Akathist to St. Anne in our then store-front mission. Within a year or two a building became available and God provided funds. It is now our parish’s home (St. Anne).

    And it’s some much sweeter than telling a story about fund-raising (which we really didn’t do much of – and I’m probably pretty lousy at it anyway). But we have these wonderful friends who are such friends of God and they want for us to have communion with God the way they have communion with God (and they want us to have communion with them!). For these things to come about through prayer rather than through our own works is ever so much sweeter. Our chief work is prayer! Always.

    Thank you for sharing. My son is now a fine young man, a tonsured reader in the parish and a good husband to his wife. He delights me so! And I always treasure his prayer to St. Michael. A month or so ago, going through some family pictures, I ran across the original prayer written out (I put it in calligraphy at the time). Such joy!

    God’s blessings! Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!

23. 

    Dinos

    July 10, 2013

    As Father Stephen just said there are numerous instances of when we experience the proximity of the Saints, [not just the empathy we sometimes experience -say,when reading their lives, which is a great way to get closer to them btw- to a given saint, but,] the concrete help they provide us with.
    In Greek saying ‘Panagia mou!’ (My all Holy one! – meaning the Mother of God) is a very common saying when one is scared, (some would say too common), but there are numerous instances where people have been miraculously saved the instant they have exclaimed these words of agony, eg: when a car has fallen of a high cliff, when one’s child has been spotted drowning at a greater distance than they can reach, when a wild animal has attacked, when a demon has tried to overpower a person with a physical assault etc etc. these things have happened and continue happening…! Someone might prove that Napoleon might have not existed, or that man might have not really gone to the moon etc. but these things HAVE happened and DO continue to happen!

24. 

    Sophia

    July 14, 2013

    Dear Fr. Stephen,

    Thank you for your wonderful response. It’s very encouraging. I’m sorry I only saw it yesterday (I thought I had set up for notifications but maybe they went to spam).

    I used to be a theologian. At least of sorts. Since becoming Orthodox I’ve gradually stopped calling myself that. It’s kind of a relief. 🙂 I’m trying to learn to pray instead of theologize as well. 🙂 I may still work with theology as my journey continues, but the paradigm shift is it is no longer just my ‘own’ Christian theology…and the miracle of realizing there is a ‘crowded universe’ full of sisters and brothers who have love for me is stunning, and humbling. A universe of ‘one’, even when surrounded by others, is a lonely sad burdensome place to be.

    Thank you, too, Dinos. Every story or affirmation about experiences of the saints is very moving for me!

    Blessings to all!