Everyday Prayers: Guardian Angel Prayer

Every person who has ever lived, is living now, and ever will live has a guardian angel. Think about that for a moment. God assigns every single human being an angelic companion, who stays right beside that person from the moment of conception until the final breath. 

Our angels protect us and guide us according to God's will, and their goal is to get us home to Heaven to be with God, and with them, forever. If we pay attention to them, learn to recognize their gentle promptings, and follow the advice they whisper to our hearts, we will find it easier to choose virtue and avoid sin. 

Unfortunately, though, most of us tend to forget that we even have a guardian angel. We simply often ignore this God-appointed being who is really one of our best friends. 

To help us recall and rely on our guardian angels, we should say the following prayer at least once a day:

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this day be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

1. Angel of God – According to the Catechism, an angel is “a spiritual, personal, and immortal creature, with intelligence and free will, who glorifies God without ceasing and who serves God as a messenger of His saving plan” (p. 866). Angels are higher than human beings in the spiritual hierarchy. They know much more than we do, for they see God face to face. Those who have chosen to serve Him (and some did not and fell from their high place) do so perfectly. The angels love God with a full, deep love, and they love us dearly, too. They want nothing more than to see us get to Heaven, so when one of them is called to serve as a guardian, he must be quite thrilled with the job, as difficult as it must be.

2. my guardian dear – Here we accept our angel as our own beloved friend. We acknowledge his protection and guidance and begin to express our gratitude.

3. to whom His love commits me here – God is the One Who assigns each individual person to an individual angel. He entrusts us to the angel's care out of love. Of course, God never stops protecting us and guiding us Himself, but He wants to give us every possible opportunity to know and respond to His loving plan of salvation, so He also gives us an angel to help us.

4. ever this day be at my side – With these words, we ask our angel to do something that he does anyway. He stays right beside us every single minute of every single day. So why do we pray this? Really, we are reminding ourselves that we have a guardian angel at our side all the time and that we can depend on him. He will never leave.

5. to light and guard – Part of a guardian angel's job is to illuminate our minds with truth, especially about God's loving will, and to shine a spotlight on what we need to know to make good moral choices. A guardian angel also guards his charge, providing protection especially from spiritual dangers and attacks from the enemy but also offering protection from physical dangers according to God's will.

6. to rule and guide – Our guardian angel nudges us in the right direction. He gives us a gentle push along the correct path. He tells our hearts how to follow God's will. But we have to listen. We have free will, and we can choose to ignore both our angel and God. Our angel can't force us, but if we let him, he will always point us toward God.

7. Amen – With this one little word, we give a firm “yes” to everything we have just prayed. We reaffirm our acknowledgment of our guardian angel and commit ourselves to his care and counsel. We promise to listen to him and to follow him as he guides us along the path to Heaven.

Let us pray.

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this day be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

Everyday Prayers: Come, Holy Spirit, Part 2

Let's continue our reflections on the Come, Holy Spirit prayer with the goal of growing closer to the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide. 

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. Let us pray. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

1. Let us pray. - With these three words, we invite, even urge, ourselves and others to pray. We commit to reaching out to God in open and loving communication. Notice the plural here. Even when we recite this prayer individually, we are still including our human family, and especially our family of faith, in our petitions. When we are Christians, we are never really alone.

2. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful – Early Christians called Baptism “Illumination.” At Baptism, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in the deepest part of us, in our hearts and souls, and He shines a light into us and though us. The Holy Spirit, when we are open, lights up the truth for us, the truth about God, about the world, about other people, about ourselves. And when we get out of His way, He can radiate through us to others and touch their hearts. Remember, too, that we don't know truth with just our minds. Rational thought is certainly part of the equation, but we also know the truth with our hearts, with that deep down intuition that is a gift from God, and with our faith when we choose to conform our minds and hearts to the reality that God has revealed.

3. grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise – What does it mean to be wise? The Catechism says that wisdom is “a spiritual gift which enables one to know the purpose and plan of God.” Fr. Jordan Aumann further explains that wisdom allows us “to judge and order all things in accordance with divine norms and with a connaturality that flows from loving union with God.” In other words, the Holy Spirit's gift of wisdom allows us to see (at least as far as humans ever can) through the eyes of God. It helps us figure out God's plans and purposes. It helps us make decisions based on God's standards. It helps us choose and act in, through, and because of our intimacy with God. This is to be truly wise.

4. and ever to rejoice in His consolation – We humans are weak and fragile and prone to being upset and frightened and worried. The Holy Spirit, therefore, consoles us in our troubles. He comforts us in our fears and failures and distress. He speaks to our hearts of God's loving care, of God's plan for our lives, of God's expectations. He lets us know that, no matter what, God will never stop loving us. He whispers that God's forgiveness is ours for the taking; we just have to repent and confess with sincere hearts. He reminds us that Jesus died for us and rose again that we might be with God forever in Heaven.

5. Through Christ our Lord. - We ask God the Father for the wisdom and consolation of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ, the Son. This is how all of our prayers always flow, for Jesus is the God-Man and the mediator between God and man.

6. Amen. - As always, we end our prayer with a resounding “Amen,” a firm yes to everything we have just prayed. In doing so, we affirm our faith in the Holy Spirit and our desire for His great gifts.

Let us pray once again.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. Let us pray. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Everyday Prayers: Come, Holy Spirit, Part 1

The Holy Spirit is the most mysterious and seemingly inaccessible Person of the Blessed Trinity. We can relate to Jesus Christ, the Son, for He became like us in all things except sin. We can even relate to the Father, for Jesus has shown us how He is Abba (Daddy) to all His children. But the Holy Spirit is more difficult to get to know. We usually see Him under the guise of symbols, like a dove, tongues of fire, or a cloud, and those signs simply don't feel personal to us. 

That being said, we must still make a constant effort to grow closer to the Holy Spirit, to become ever more intimate with Him, for He is our Advocate and our Guide. He is the One Who inspires us. He is the One Who dwells within our souls when we are in a state of grace. He is the very Love that flows between the Father and the Son and from Them out to us. 

To begin our quest for a deeper personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, we can pray the following simple yet meaningful prayer every day:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. Let us pray. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

1. Come, Holy Spirit – We begin with an invitation, asking the Holy Spirit to come to us. We could stop the prayer right here if we say these three words with a loving, humble, childlike expectation and an open heart. The Holy Spirit will come to us when we ask Him.

2. fill the hearts of Your faithful – We continue to pray because we need to remember exactly what the Holy Spirit does when He comes to us. He fills our hearts. He enters the deepest part of our being and saturates us with the divine presence. That's exactly what we want: to be so filled with God that there is no room for anything else.

3. and enkindle in them the fire of Your love – The Holy Spirit starts a fire in us, a fire of love. Think about fire for a moment. It is a source of warmth and energy and life, but it also dangerous. God is like that, too. He is our Source of warmth and energy and life, but He is also dangerous. He is more powerful than we can ever imagine. When He enters our souls, He transforms us. He sets us on fire. He leads us into an intimacy with Him that we cannot fully grasp, and He guides us and sends us out into situations we never would have imagined we'd be in. A relationship with God is a risk. We can't control God. We have to let go of ourselves and surrender to His burning love. But it's a risk that's well worth taking.

4. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. - This sentence and the one that follows come from Psalm 104:30. Here we remember that the Holy Spirit was that breath of God that brooded over the waters at the beginning of the universe. God's Holy Spirit was active in creation, infusing the world with being and love.

5. And You shall renew the face of the earth. – God's Holy Spirit never rests. God keeps the world in being at every moment. If He stopped thinking about anyone or anything for even an instant, that person or thing would simply cease to be. But He doesn't. His Holy Spirit continually blows through the world, breathing new life into every place in which He is welcomed. This is especially true now the Jesus Christ has poured out the Holy Spirit upon those who believe in Him and follow Him. The Holy Spirit breathes in us, renewing us, refreshing us, and drawing us ever closer to the Blessed Trinity.

We will continue our reflections in the next post, but now let's pray again:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. Let us pray. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Holy Saturday: Waiting

The whole world waits in silence. Yesterday the King of the Universe died on the cross. Today all is quiet, watching, sensing that something more is soon to come, anticipating what will happen next.

Mother Mary waits, too. Yesterday she watched her Son suffer and die, and a huge part of her suffered and died with Him. Today she mourns in hope, remembering and trusting in His promise that after three days He would rise again. 

Mary's companions wait also. Yesterday these women stood with Mary near the cross, weeping over the death of their Lord. Today they remain close to Mary, tears still streaming down their cheeks, listening to her comforting words and taking heart in her calm demeanor.

The apostles wait in grief. Yesterday all their hope died on the cross with Jesus. Today they don't know how they will go on without Him or what they should do next. Despair creeps closer as the day passes.

The guards at the tomb wait and wonder. Yesterday the Man inside was crucified, and even though He is definitely dead and gone, the Jews requested a watch to make sure His disciples don't steal His body. Today the guards feel nervous, perceiving currents in the air but not understanding what they mean. Nothing could possibly happen, could it?

Pontius Pilate waits and ponders. Yesterday he ordered a Man to be crucified, a Man he knew was not guilty. Jesus had talked to him about truth, but he didn't know what truth was. He didn't even know if there was any such thing as truth. Today, though, he has strong suspicion that the Truth is about to crash down upon the world in a way he could never have imagined.

The Jewish leaders wait, strangely apprehensive. Yesterday, to their great satisfaction, their enemy had died on the cross, and they figured they would have to deal with him no longer. Today they aren't so sure. Something is brewing; they can't tell what, but they are pretty sure they aren't going to like it.

We wait, too. Yesterday our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, to save us from our sins and reconcile us with God, to open Heaven for us, to give us eternal life. Today we quietly prepare for what we know will happen tomorrow.

Amen.