Being an Angel in the Modern World

Many, if not most, pictures we have of angels are from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Also, many modern pictures of angels are variations of some ancient themes such as wings and harps. All of this may lead one to believe that, while angels were once plentiful on earth, we are now facing a real dearth of heavenly messengers.

Well, here is the good news: lack and scarcity thinking about angels is just as misguided in the divine economy as lack and scarcity thinking is in most other areas of life.

This was really brought home to me recently when I read a wonderful post on The Upper Room by N.R. Gillogly from Texas. Now N.R. Is a senior citizen who lives in a retirement community. He lives in the independent living section of the facility.

However, N.R. recently went through a hip replacement, and the recovery was not easy. He had hoped to quickly bounce back to his old self, but this did not happen. What was he going to do? How would he get so many chores done? Driving himself around was completely out of the question.

But you know what happened to N.R.? A ton of angels started to appear in his life. "A friend asked if she could shop for me. Another friend pushed me around in a wheelchair to where I needed to go. A third offered to do my laundry. And some friends offered to pick me up for church. I believe they were angels sent by God to help me," N.R. reported.

As all of this happened, N.R. started thinking about all the folks who were acting as angels to him. “I wondered how many times I had missed being God’s angel for someone else. Even when I cannot physically do what they need done, I can always pray for them and their needs,” he added.

Maybe this is how so many angels show up in the modern world. N.R. says that, “We will have opportunities to help in many ways if we are alert to God’s guiding us to the needs of others. Each of us has talents and abilities to serve God by serving others.”

N.R. suggests that we: “Ask God to guide us to the person for whom we can be an angel.” He also reminds us to thank Spirit for the angels sent to help us in our lives.

All of this reminds me of a wonderful story about Jesus feeding the 5,000. Now I was not at the actual feeding of the 5,000, but I love this story. First of all how many people go into the desert to listen to an enlightened teacher and not bring food? Second, I think it is safe to assume that most of the people there had a ton of food, but they were keeping it close to their vests because they weren’t expecting to run into any Walmarts or Safeways in the desert.

Jesus and the disciples were able to scrounge up a few fishes and loves of bread. It wasn’t much, but he blessed what he had. Then he started sharing it with everybody.

This spirit of sharing and compassion was so infectious that it spread throughout the crowd — and everybody started sharing some of what they had. The rest, of course, is history. The angels were plentiful that day!

I also believe that Saint Teresa of Avila has much to teach us about encountering angels in the modern world. This great 16th century Spanish mystic wrote:

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours,

no hands but yours, no feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world;

yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which he is to bless people now.”

Please remember that angels are nothing more than divine messengers. Who says that you and I can’t be divine messengers?

Many blessings,

Rev. Rick