Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - April 9, 2025
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from You.”
For some years I have resisted any too facile notion that so-and-so is an angel.— I have no doubt when the reference is to a chubby-cheeked two-year-old. Even after he has smashed a jar of jam on the carpet, he still seems angelic. — My own experience now has me thinking: perhaps I should get over my qualms and join in claiming or re-claiming ‘angel’ for personal belief, for my personal life.
Otherwise commerce will take complete control of the term. One reads that originally (outside of Scripture) the term angel was used to refer to someone who invested his or her money in the production of a Broadway show. Now, in the world of money, it is used more broadly, while you or I may feel that the term angel is the only, the best way to describe the impact of another person in our life.
The angel may be a stranger or a friend. He or she doesn’t have to know that he/she is an angel. Individual beneficiaries of an angel may not be aware of the person’s ‘angelic’ status. Does the angel in this case even know what he or she is doing? Personal experience of individuals who show you or me much love or help in some crucial moment convinces us that he or she is an angel.
There was another reason for my hesitation: who am I, among the millions of people on this planet, to think that an angel has singled me out? However, of course, a central part of our faith is that God (not a limited being like you and I) loves each of us and that such angels embody that in our lives. Psalm 147:3,4 tells us that God not only knows the stars by name but heals the broken-hearted. I think some of us, overwhelmed by the goodness of this ‘angel’ feel it’s almost “too good to be true”. That seems to be the universal response to these human angels. They make your day, your week, your month . . . your life.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
