Cool Light Reflection

A couple weeks ago, I had just gotten up and was feeling very stressed over all the things that were happening. Work, my upcoming "Great Monastic Adventure", etc.

My drapes were still closed as the sun was coming in and I wanted to keep the house as cool as possible.

I think that's also the morning I received an email reply or at least was reviewing it, from one of the communities I wanted to visit. I remember a sudden sense of being overwhelmed and I prayed, "Blessed Mother, what should I do?"

I stood up, turned to go into the kitchen and get my coffee, and caught sight of a bright glare of sunlight that had found its way through the drape.

To my eye at the time, it looked like an angel, and indeed, I know my Guardian Angel is always present. The photos make me think of several versions of Our Lady, though. Our Lady of Grace, Our Mother of Perpetual Help, Mary Queen of Heaven, Queen of the Angels... all of course, are the same person....our dear Blessed Mother.

Because the light was so cool, I grabbed my cheapo disposible camera and thought it couldn't hurt to try to capture the image, although I sincerely thought that the flash would completely destroy it. So I covered it as best I could with my fingers and snapped a few shots. I think one of the two images is actually with full flash, which is amazing, and I think the other is without, with me covering it (as it's automatic), so a little got through.

I've seen the light come through and hit that corner a few times, but it's never before caught my attention like it did on that day. I love how God can use the most mundane things to remind us that He is present and hears our prayers.

I also love it when photos we think don't have a chance of turning out...do!

I believe it was St. Therese of Lisieux who said, "Always take comfort from knowing you are in the presence of the angels."

Indeed.

Devotion to the Holy Angels

I have long had a devotion to the Angels, having been introduced to my Guardian Angel at a young age thanks to my dear mother.

Feathers for Children

We used to lie in bed on lazy afternoons, reaching upwards towards the ceiling, I on my mother's left, my brother on her right. Our image of angels were of beings that looked like us, but invisible, and with beautiful wings. Mom explained that they were flying over our heads, and if we raised our hands above us, we could feel the feathery tips as they passed over, constantly revolving in their acts of protection.

It's one of my favorite memories of childhood; holding my fingers upward while lying in bed, sometimes feeling a breeze against my fingertips, while my brother cried out that he had touched a feather. Mom smiled, praising my brother as I tried to stretch upwards even further, not wanting to sit up in order to reach them, asking my Angel to fly a little lower so I could touch his wing, desperately wanting to have the same experience as my brother.

Then I would cry, because the closest I could get was a little breeze, which might have been just a random draft, or maybe a flap of his wing. I was too little, I thought, and in my littleness, I couldn't reach the dear angels, whom I loved so dearly! And then Mom, seeing my tears, would comfort me and say they were only pretending, and even my brother, in a moment of sincere big-brotherhood, would admit he was pretending, too, and he couldn't feel their wings, either.

But a part of me still believes, even as I know angels are pure spirit, and don't fly overhead, that they did generate the breezes that caressed my tiny fingers, and that maybe my brother and my mother DID experience the sensation of feathers against their fingertips, held aloft in a moment of imagination, truly reaching upwards to God through His beautiful servants, our Guardians.

Our Fierce Protectors

Have you ever read the description of the Angels in the Bible? The term "Angel" really describes a role, as opposed to who they are. Maybe we adopt the term because, as humans, what we are is what we use to describe us. Angels are more insubstantial; they fulfill many roles, and collectively, we call these beings by one name even though they carry out different facets of the Will of God.

Have you read of the description of the Cherubim or the Seraphim? Have you taken in how fierce they are, how they worship Our Lord continually, how they do His will so perfectly?

And yet, they are so gentle that Abba gives them to the tiniest of children, entrusting such souls to their care. Guardian Angels can come from any one of the heirarchies of Angels...and each of them is fierce in their love for God, and their love for God's adopted children.

Naming One's Angel

I have read many things about naming one's Guardian Angel, and some of those articles seem quite convincing. There are many anecdotes about how people pray for a name, and it comes. (What's amazing to me is how many times those names are "Michael")

I used to pray to know my Angel's name, but then I read further, and found that, in spiritual warfare, names are important. Names are powerful, and the names of Angels...unpronounceable. All we could discern are derivatives. We must also remember the Fallen Angels, those demons that seek to steal us away from God, and those demons also have names. In an exorcism, the Exorcist asks for the name of the demon; that name can give the exorcist power over it...or, in the case of the unprepared...the power of the demon over the soul. Imagine, if you will, that you pray for the name of your Angel, and a Fallen Angel offers his name? Thus, when you pray, you pray to the name of the demon, entrusting yourself to it. And it chuckles, realizing that it now has you in it's power, freely given by you.

Names are important. Names have power.

We are not meant to know the names of our Holy Angels, those sweet Guardians. They remain nameless so that greater Glory can be given to God. Angels are humility nearly personified, remaining anonymous (but for those revealed in Sacred Scripture or Tradition), while those who give their names are seeking glory through their own pride.

If you pray, then, for a name to your Angel and there is a response, question the response...for who is being glorified when you call that name? How many have as their personal protector the Archangel Michael? How many have as a personal protector the Archangel Raphael?

How many people who claim to be reincarnated claim famous people as their own incarnation?

Do not those Angels, the ones named in Scripture, already have assignments? Any Saint or Angel can certainly be a special Patron, but our Guardian Angels are ours alone, assigned specifically to us, individually. Their names can't be known.

We as human beings are weak in the realm of the spirit, and we must trust the Our Lord and the Church to guide us. Certainly it is possible that our Guardian Angels might reveal their names to us, but I find it safer to follow the advice of recognized Exorcists to allow our Guardians to remain nameless so that we may call upon their Mission, not their name, in order to avoid calling upon the Nemesis.

It is important for us to recognize our Angels, but we can do this by using the mind of God, of remembering the virtue of Humility, and leaning on our Angels as we learn this foundational virtue.

I used to ask for my Angel's name...now I just pray to him, calling upon his title, for we are comfortable enough with one another that his name is not important; it is his function and subsequent relationship with me that glorifies God.

Our ways are not God's ways, and even if we do not understand His mysteries, we are bound to follow them. I thank God for my dear Angel, and look forward to finally learning his name, one day, when he finally carries me to the Father's eternal embrace.

Childhood Disasters and Angelic Salvation

Everyone has stories from childhood, whether of theirs or that of their children.

I told one such story about how my Mother and every other involved parent in the neighborhood converged to save us from a spring flood.

This really was my mother's story as my memory is not so clear, and I have other stories also belonging to Mom which I now take as my own. Each family has their own oral tradition; and so I encourage all of you to absorb what you learn from your parents, or what you learn AS parents, and pass it on. As it is, today, I pass on a couple stories, thanks to Melody's comment which inspired me.

The Nick of Time...

My brother and I grew up watching Tom & Jerry cartoons, and anyone familiar with these characters knows how often they hit each other with common household objects, and how birds and stars would circle their heads after a cranial impact.

Well, around that time our parents had purchased a table and chairs made for children, both of which were kept in the living room, likely because of my "tea parties" to which both Mom and Dad found themselves "invited." I seriously must not have been older than three or four at the time, which would have made my brother five or six.

One day, my brother decided that he would like to see the birds and stars, and although I recall little of the experience, I think I agreed that I'd like to see the creatures around my head. As none of the cartoon characters ever suffered anything other than crossed eyes (which I already had, by nature) and the flying things, well, I agreed to the experiment.

Mom walked into the room just in time to see my brother raising the chair over his head. She stopped him mid-swing as the chair descended towards my tender skull, and took it away from him.

Guardian angel intervention? Quite possible. Quite likely. Can you IMAGINE the headlines that would hit the news today?

And I have yet another story, from around the same time period.

Impossible Salvation

Mom and Dad, as most parents, had a full-sized or queen bed, and it was just WONDERFUL for jumping. Of course, Mom and Dad BOTH had FORBIDDEN us to jump on the bed...EVER!

But one morning, we went into Mom's room and began bouncing. That was fun, but then my brother, being a boy, found the need to up the ante because bouncing wasn't enough. He started to push me, likely expecting me to push him back. But me, being a girl, was completely contented with just bouncing, and saw his pushing as a personal attack.

I think I likely did push him back and told him to stop, but he didn't, and at one point in the skirmish, I remember being in mid-air, being pushed, and I remember the room turning upside-down.

It happened in slow-motion. I saw the ceiling, the wall, the brown dresser, and the green diamond-shaped Berber-type carpeting, and just before my head hit, I stopped. For a moment, I was suspended, not even breathing as I observed the room around me, knowing at even a cellular level that horror had been averted.

My brother was holding my ankles with a strength I didn't know he had...because he had stopped my momentum and my descent in an instant. I remember being able to touch the floor beneath me, and I remember studying the dresser in my upside-down position, my legs straight up in the air, soles towards the ceiling. My back wasn't even touching the bed, which meant that my brother's arms had to have been extended straight out from him.

My brother pulled me back onto the bed, again, with a strength that belied his years. As soon as I was there, I looked around the room, shocked. He was no longer interested in jumping and playing. He was as terrified, if not MORE terrified, than I was in that moment. Neither one of us, though, really understood the full consequences of the action that had been averted.

My brother's eyes were saucers and he was already pleading with me not to cry, not to call Mom, not to tell. He was telling me I was OK, don't cry, don't cry...

And of course, realizing that I'd been upside-down not according to my own will, what did I do but start to cry?

I don't remember the rest. I'm not sure if my brother calmed me down or if I ran away and told Mom. That part is too fuzzy. I do remember him begging me to be quiet, I remember his hand on my shoulder, I remember him telling me that I was fine, and I was. But I didn't know what else to do but cry, and I did know clearly that my dear brother had saved me.

But in looking back, considering I was around 3 or 4, and my brother, 2 1/2 years older, I don't know how he could have saved me. I don't know how he could have halted my descent. I don't think he had the physical strength to work against...well...physics.

There is no doubt in my mind that our Guardian Angels intervened physically to save us both in that instance.

"Can you feel the tips of their wings?"

Mom taught us both, at a very young age, about Guardian Angels. I still remember the afternoons that we laid down for a nap,one of us on either side of Mom. She would speak to us about the angels, and invite us to raise our hands in the air. She told us they were flying above our extended hands, and we should be able to feel the feathers on their wings against our fingertips as they flew.

I stretched my little fingers as far as possible, but never felt the wings touch them. I never felt the breeze created by their flight. But my brother cried out that he could feel it, and Mom endorsed this as she said she could feel it, too. Never once did I ever feel the passing of the angels over us, and finally, one day, I cried because I thought the angels didn't love me. I cried because my arms were too short, and the angels couldn't fly low enough to reach me. And I cried because, once again, the people older than I could experience what I could not because I was too little.

Mom and my brother both sought to comfort me and stop my tears, and finally my brother admitted he couldn't really feel the wings, either, but was only pretending. And Mom admitted the same thing, but told us both that the angels were real, they were really there, even though we couldn't touch them with our fingertips.

The angels, clearly, revealed themselves when it was important, and not when we desired that they do so. They were present when it counted, and although I've never seen my Angel, I am forever grateful for his perfect intervention, no doubt aided by my brother's own angel, and also my Mom's. (They're all in cahoots, you know...)

All of us have stories of childhood disasters, and many of us can see, as adults, the divine intervention that saved us. What is your story? Did it happen when you were a child, or did it happen to aid you in your parenthood?

A Cold Winter's Tale

One more story: Mom tells a tale about traveling with my brother and I in the winter. I believe she and our Dad were still married, but I don't recall how it was that we were alone. And I remember part of this night. We were caught in a Midwestern snowstorm, where there was nothing to stop the wind. Mom was scared, it was obvious, and she was praying, out loud, there in the car with us, for somewhere to go. We'd gotten lost and had to find our way to the interstate.

Out of the snowy winter darkness there appeared a gas station and a diner, and so Mom stopped, grateful, hoping for directions, willing to sleep in a truck stop booth if it meant getting home safely.

We were both very little, and I think I still remember the light, Mom's anxiety, and a very nice lady who welcomed us. She was a "down home" sort of woman, used to catering to truckers, but we were the only guests. She said that "something" had told her to keep the light on in case someone happened by in such a terrible storm. She fed us, she talked to Mom about many things, and did her best to make us all feel at home. And at one point, she told us it was OK to leave, and how to get to where we needed to go. Mom thanked her, and offered her money for the food, but the woman waved her off...it was her pleasure. She'd been paid by being able to help.

So Mom packed us back into the car and we were on our way.

I don't know when this happened, but it was either the next day or maybe within weeks of the incident. She wanted to find the truck stop and the woman who had helped us, and she found what she thought was the spot, but it was closed down and clearly hadn't been inhabited in years. Mom drove to a nearby gas station or other business (I'm not sure) which was nearby and had been closed on the night of the storm. The person there told her that the place where we'd been had been nothing but a ruin for YEARS, and that it wasn't POSSIBLE that anyone had been there the night the down-home lady had taken us in from the cold.

Remind me to get the actual story from Mom...if I can get better detail, I'll tell the story here.

So...what's YOUR story? Com-box is open for business!

Freedom

MUSH AND TRIALS

It's been an amazing weekend. Great people, a very diverse, but faithful group, and material that, through sheer volume, has turned my brain to mush. I was going to study tonight, or at least get a start, but I don't have it in me.

It doesn't help that this morning my automatic garage door mechanism was doing weird things and I am fearful that my car is now forever entrapped within it. It doesn't help that the last of my front door locks went kaput tonight. So, having bought the lock kit back in June when the first one went, I tried to replace them both. And realized I had no idea what I was doing. But my next-door neighbor who offered to help then, stepped forward tonight to give me the bad news about my garage door mechanism and changed my locks, even as his dinner cooked on his grill. Because, to him, it was more important that I be safe that it was for him to eat. God bless him. He also expressed to me that once he starts a job, he will finish it.

And I have to give credit to the Guardian Angels for their assistance. Because after about an hour and a half of his struggling with stubborn components, and although we were both begging Heaven for help, I went into the kitchen to have a heart-to-heart with the angels. I asked my Guardian Angel for help, and prayed to my neighbor's Guardian Angel...please help him with this lock! His family is calling him for dinner, he's been wonderful to help me, but I won't be able to sleep if I don't have a working deadbolt! I can't sleep with a hole in the door where the deadbolt is supposed to be, which would of course give anyone access to the thumblatch. Yeah....no one can sleep with that kind of security breech. Neither should anyone go without dinner with their family on a Sunday.

While I did not necessarily express anything but begging to the angels, the reasons were of course understoo. And lo and behold, as I returned to the livingroom where my neighbor worked so diligently, the parts had gone into their places and he was just finishing the job!

People, never fail to pray to your Guardian Angel. They are just WAITING to help us and can help with the simplest things in the simplest ways. Yes, they are big, fierce warriors, sent to help us all get to Heaven...but in the meantime when we aren't immediately beset by demons and temptation, they are thrilled to help with little jobs around the house if we but ask. (And you probably think I'm kidding).

Anyway, moving on from the trials of the day.....

My brain is mush. Is that what we are talking about? Oh, yes...freedom.

FREEDOM

Our professor pointed out today that our society has a very poor "understanding" as to what "freedom" really is.

A common "expression" of what society refers to as "Freedom" is this:

I think I will smoke a cigarette...because I have the FREEDOM to do so! I think I will spend a bunch of money at the casino because I have the FREEDOM to do so.

Imagine that. If we go and have a cigarette, and then decide to have another...and another, because we have the "freedom" to do so, and make that free choice day after day, in a month, how free are we really to choose NOT to have the cigarette?

And if we go and blow some money at the casino, and win some, and then lose some...and because of the excitement, we decide to repeat the experience...over and over... Well, think about it. Over a period of time, especially if this behavior depletes ALL our reserves and the thrill of the gamble causes us to get into other types of gambling, higher stakes, perhaps to the degree we are losing the car and the house....is that freedom? When we are that far in the hole, how free are we now NOT to "play"?

As our professor observed, what kind of freedom destroys itself by our choosing of it?

A friend of mine once observed that she wished she'd never given up her virginity; because after saying "yes" once, it was that much harder, every time, to say "no" to someone else.

What a definition of slavery.

What kind of "freedom" enslaves us to it?

Examine your life. Examine your conscience. If you are having a difficult time NOT choosing something, perhaps it's time to realize what binds you from a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. For as long as you are giving yourself to the master you have chosen from your concept of "freedom" you are not free to say "yes" to what God may be calling you to do.

Your passions and desires are supposed to be controlled by you...not the other way around.

So I echo the question presented in class to us today:

What kind of freedom is it, that if you act upon it, destroys itself and enslaves you to it?