The Collect for the Feast of St. Michael & All Angels (29 September) confesses that God has ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful order, and it goes on to ask that, as the angels always worship Him in heaven, they should also guard and protect His Church on earth. Certainly, it is right that we acknowledge and give thanks to God for the holy angels and the many ways in which they serve us in body and soul, according to His bidding. For as we know from the Epistle to the Hebrews, they are “all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14).
We often think and speak of “guardian angels,” implicit in the Word of our Lord concerning the little ones who believe in Him, when He says that “their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (St. Matthew 18:10). I suspect that most if not all of us could share stories of circumstances in which either we or our loved ones were spared from seemingly unavoidable harm and danger by the unseen intervention of God’s holy angels, and no doubt numerous other situations were similarly dealt with apart from any awareness on our part.
The holy angels of God often do guard and protect us from bodily injury and mortal calamity, because they love and cherish us for the sake of Christ, our Savior, who has made our human nature to be His very own. We get a glimpse of that, for example, in the way the angels tenderly bear the body of poor Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom (St. Luke 16:22), as many will have heard in the Holy Gospel this past Sunday. Our bodies are redeemed for the Resurrection and eternal Life with God, and so do His angels serve and care for our bodies even in this earthly life.
Of even greater concern to the Lord – and therefore also to His holy angels – is the preservation of our bodies and souls in repentance and the one true faith unto the Life everlasting. So it is that the Christians on earth, accused and assaulted by Satan and his wicked angels, do not love their lives “even unto death,” but overcome the devil, all his works, and all his ways, “by the Blood of the Lamb and by the Word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11). It is clear from the context of that passage that St. Michael and all the holy angels are very much involved and heavily invested in the outcome of this spiritual warfare. They are deeply committed to those who belong to God.
There are times when the heavenly angels are sent with the message of the Gospel, as in the case of the annunciations of the conception and birth of St. John the Baptist and Christ Jesus Himself (St. Luke 1:11-20, 26-37; St. Matthew 1:20-21), and again when the angels declared the news of the Lord’s Holy Nativity to the Bethlehem shepherds (St. Luke 2:8-14). However, it is normally and chiefly to human “angels” (messengers) that the preaching of the Gospel is committed. The most striking example of that contrast is when an angel of the Lord appears to Cornelius, for the purpose of telling him to send for the Apostle Peter, so that he might come and preach the Word to him and to his household (Acts 10). The heavenly angels serve the preaching of the Gospel primarily by protecting and preserving the preachers and the hearers in peace and safety!
I’ve long been convinced that the “angels” of the seven churches of Asia, to whom St. John is directed to write in Revelation 2-3, are the pastors or bishops of those churches – that is to say, the messengers of God who are entrusted with the reading and preaching of the Holy Scriptures, unto repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins (St. Luke 24:47; 1Timothy 4:13). To be sure, the pastors and bishops must be “able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2), in order to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2; see also Titus 1:9). By thus keeping a close watch on themselves and on their teaching of God’s Word and faith, His human angels serve as the instruments of His grace and salvation (1 Timothy 4:16). And as “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,” but “against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” let us never let go “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:12, 17).