The angels were to witness the birth of God’s only Son and flew closer to earth and sang sweetly. They caught sight of the new-born child from the stable’s roof and instantly understood their mission. They were so filled with joy that they burst into a glorious thanksgiving song. It was so melodious that it could be heard all over the Earth. They are known as Christmas angels. We see Christmas angels singing and playing music in Nativity scenes who look so cute and benevolent that they catch young one’s attention and fascination instantly.

The word angel is derived from the Hebrew word which takes the meaning ‘one going’ or ‘one sent’. The Hebrew word is used to denote either a divine or human messenger. The Latin version however distinguishes the divine or spirit messenger from the human, rendering the original in the one case by angelus and the other by legatus or more generally by nuntius.

The angels are represented throughout the Bible as a body of spiritual beings intermediate between God and men; “you have made him (man) a little less than the angels” (Ps. 8:6). They, equally with man, are created beings; “Praise Him all His angels: praise Him all His hosts… for He spoke and they were made. He commanded and they were created” (Ps. 148:2). That the angels were created was laid down in the fourth Lateran Council.

Angels As Personal Guardians

Throughout the Bible we find it repeatedly implied that each individual soul has its tutelary angel. Thus Abraham, when sending his steward to seek a wife for Isaac, says; “He will send His angel before you” (Gen. 24:7). The words of the ninetieth Psalm which the devil quoted to our Lord (Mt. 4:6) are well known, and Judith accounts for her heroic deed by saying; “As the Lord lives, His angel has been my keeper” (Gen. 13:20).

Angles can make communications with the saints in heaven. They constantly intercede for us. When we begin to travel securely along the spiritual path Angels pray to heaven for giving us most valuable graces. Angels can help us even from falling into dangers. A spiritual enlightenment of the human soul is the sole aim of the creation of angels. We will be led by the angles invoking the grace of God, forever.

Related Articles: Guardian Angel Pics, An Angel says, Guardian Angels

Prayer: O my guardian Angel, appointed by God for my protection, enlighten my intellect, guide and protect me from dangers and accidents. Enable me to see the face of God, experience His presence and hear His voice even as you do. Amen.

- – - written by Tony Chittilappilly

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
– that is to say, grace –
and circumstances
acting on your own good will
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.
Amen.

- – - by Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. from The Making of the Mind

Please read the book Waiting On God

Faith is trust in a person that He will not leave us alone. Faith in God is the strong assurance one has at the bottom of his or her heart that all those things that are impossible for human being are possible for God.

Once I had an opportunity to interact with a couple and our discussion is still fresh in my mind. The Husband is around 48 years old and the wife is 46. They have no children yet. They prayed a lot but no answer was favored to them. With great enthusiasm I asked them a question, “Do you still pray for a child even today in this situation? Do you believe that God can work miracles even in this crisis?”

Their response was just a hum which was so interesting and thought-provoking. I believe that the answer cannot be Yes, as I noticed their grieving face, desperate eyes and in their eyes I could read the answer to my question “How can a child be conceived at this age? Even the uterus was also removed due to the illness” there is no scope for a different answer than this.

This made me to think more about the man’s faith in God. Most of our faith is not much different from those couple I interacted with. Since there is always a logic involved in our faith like that of the couple, our trust is more relying on our abilities than God’s power to do greater things in our lives.

1. Child who is brilliant and has the capabilities to study better will win in the Exams
2. Since the uterus is capable and the age is suitable, a child may be conceived..
3. Since the body is responding to medicine, healing may happen.

Our logical thought goes like this; If that is the case, the God who formed the heaven and earth even before you were formed in your mother’s womb and given you name is an omnipotent God and for Him everything which is impossible for man is possible.

Abraham and Sarai

Nothing different is the experience of Abraham the father of all believers and his beloved wife Sarai. Genesis 13:14-16 says that “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him; Raise your eyes now and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward” For all the land that you see I will give to you and your ‘offspring’ forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and breadth of the land for I will give it to you. What a strange promise when one looks at this with his logic because Abram is Childless when God promised this and they must have longed for a child after Abram and Sarai become one.

Still Abram was sure that God will favor his prayers and God is faithful to his promises and that is the reason that Abram went towards the Promised land which is offered to his own descendents even when he was childless. Abraham experiences a delay to reach in to God’s promises and probably which could have caused his heart to go dim and to doubt than trusting in God’s promises.

Again the merciful and compassionate God speak to Abraham in a vision that we read in Genesis 15:1-6, “After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, ‘O Lord God what will you give me, for I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Demascus?’ And Abram said, you have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’

But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir no one but your very own child shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said “look towards heaven and count the star, if you are able to count them”. Then he said to him “so shall your descendents be and he believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

However, after long-awaited interval Abraham still experience the withdrawing faith and he listened to Sarah’s words and obeyed Sarah’s advice to go to her slave girl and obtain children by her. It clearly tells us that even Abraham or Sarah could not believe what God promising many a times in their lives before.

However, we see the merciful and compassionate God again and again intervening in his life and promising the same thing even at his age of 99 in Genesis 17: 1-6 God tells him “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and make you exceedingly numerous.” Then Abram fell on his face, God said to him, as for me this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of Nations. No longer shall your name be Abram but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the multitude of nations; and I will make you exceedingly fruitful. “

Now it is Sarai’s turn because the logic is that a woman cannot conceive after certain age, and see in Genesis that God even making Abrams heart strong to believe that everything is possible for God we see in Genesis 17:15-19, God said to Abram, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her and she shall give rise to nations; King of people shall come from her. At this time when God spoke to him Abram fell on his face and laughed as his logic questioned him if a child can be born to such an old lady like Sarah who was 99 years old and Abraham who was 100 years old.

However, even the merciful and compassionate God comes down to meet Abraham again and again whose faith had grown down and could not believe in God’s providence and promises as he being completely a human being crammed with logics.

In Genesis 18:9-15, God appears to him and ask where is your wife Sarah, “There in the tent, then one said, I will surely return to you in due season and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” Sarah was also listening to this conversation at the tent entrance behind him, could not believe as to how can an old woman like her and her old husband have pleasure was her argument.

Still what had happened in their lives? Abraham and Sarah’s life is not different from those couples whom I had introduced you before. Genesis 21 ;1-2 gives us an answer to that question” The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.Here we clearly understand that one who waits for God’s own time will experience God’s greater miracle. The wonder here is that the Bible says that the 99-year-old lady nursed her son Issac with her own milk till he grew up instead of substituting it with any other food.

All these incidents in Abraham and Sarah’s life gives us ample evidence and proof that nothing is impossible for God Almighty and God works in one’s life in his own time. Therefore, it is good to believe in God’s power and ability than trusting in one’s own abilities and capabilities. God can work in your life in a mighty way even when there is no hope in your life and you feel you are left out with no scope for things according to your logic and ‘reasons. If you are willing to believe strongly inside your heart that God will do great things in your life, certainly it will be done for you.

The wax melts at a certain degree Celsius is a scientific proof and hence we believe it. However, faith means believing that God can work even where science has no scope. Each and every Christian has a call to grow in faith which goes above ones logic. If Christian life is not growing beyond rituals and if the rituals are not becoming an outward expression of an intimate and unbreakable relationship with Christ, One cannot experience the depth of the deep-rooted faith in God’s ability. It is difficult for a human being to have such strong faith in God when his logic rules him.

When we question about the place of God in Man’s life, the answer is correct that the place of God in Man’s life is extremely high. However, man’s reasoning limits him to think about God as a powerful person who is extremely high and above from man’s reach and slow in answering his prayers. However when we realize that our Lord is the God who is powerful, compassionate and merciful and that He came down from the heavens to the earth to live with us humans, we will flee from our sins and come out from the lack of faith in his abilities and will have a passionate desire to live with him and this will enable us to acquire a strong faith to believe that nothing is impossible for God.

Read Nothing is impossible for The Lord

When God becomes an intimate and loving family member who always stays with us, we stop wandering for materialistic pleasures and seeking reasons in everything else than God’s ability. May the Holy Spirit help us to experience him more closely so as to have a strong faith in his ability.

- – - written by Thomas Philip