"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
Winter greetings, dear Friends! In this busy holiday season, let's stop and contemplate, for a moment, our angel companions. Some say we have angels all around us all the time, unseen and unheard, and that they act as our guardians. Others feel angels are among us as flesh and blood human beings who come along at just the right time when we need them most. Some feel they really dwell within each of us, coming to us as a whisper or an urging of our soul in response to our needs and questions. Whatever your particular feeling about angels, know they are freely available to us in the silence of our hearts, and they always respond to us if we but ask. Angelic blessings to all, in this season of greatest blessing!
Angels are messengers of God; they do exist. They are love, joy, and beauty. Their message of hope and inspiration is there to open the hearts and consciousness of all people.
~ from TARA'S ANGELS by Kirk Moore
Our angelic messengers protect us and guide us. Residing in cubbies watching for those moments of peril when they may be handy and of useful service, angels are the power of a higher presence. They are our patrons from the unseen.
~ from THE BUTTERFLY COMETH by Diana Webb
Silently, one by one,
in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars,
the forget-me-nots of the angels.~ EVANGELINE by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Around our pillows golden ladders rise,
And up and down the skies,
With winged sandals shod,
The angels come, and go, the Messengers of God!~ Richard Henry Stoddard
Here in New Harmony, one of my favorite places of prayer is the sculpture of Tobi Kahn, a renowned Jewish artist from New York. The piece is called Shalev, or Angel of Compassion. It is a twelve-foot-high granite archway under which the angel of compassion is passing. She is a life-sized human figure made of gleaming bronze, and her head and entire posture incline with presence. The archway has always felt to me like the archway of the present moment, the archway of every moment. And the angel is like a messenger of the Living Presence, inclining with compassion, accompanying us and our world as we enter the archway of the present.
~ from A NEW HARMONY by John Philip Newell
I believe we are free, within limits, and yet there is an unseen hand, a guiding angel, that somehow, like a submerged propeller, drives us on.
~ Rabindranath Tagore
We attract angels by becoming the qualities that are of interest to them. When we focus on such qualities as compassion, faith or tolerance . . . we attract angelic beings that are trying to help develop that in all humanity.
~ K. Martin-Kuri
I believe that angels are forms, images, and expressions through which the essences and energy forces of God can be transmitted and that, since there are an infinite number of these forms, the greatest service anyone can pay the angelic host is never consciously to limit the ways angels might appear to us.
~ from ANGELS, ANGELS EVERYWHERE by Don Gilmore
Her eyes were kindled from the lamps of Heaven.
Her voice reached through me, tender, sweet and low:
An angel's voice, a music of its own.
And in the center, great wings spread apart,
more than a thousand festive angels shone,
each one distinct in radiance, and in art.~ from THE DIVINE COMEDY by Dante
We should pray to the angels,
for they are given to us as guardians.~St. Ambrose
The earth has grown old
with its burden of care
but in truth it always is young
The heart of the jewel
burns lustrous and fair,
and its soul full of music breaks the air
When the song of angels is sung.~ Phillips Brooks
The sun receives information from the center of the galaxy. Light comes from other stars as well as the sun. The universe communicates with itself through light. Light beams are messengers, and one synonym for messenger is "angel." A light ray is an angel. An angel is a being of light carrying information outward from the center of our galaxy, star to star, sun to planet. Our seemingly solid bodies are created from condensed sunlight, making us vessels of light, just like angels. Our true identity is angelic, or light-filled. We are beings filled with the information that comes to earth in light.
~ from BEYOND FEAR by Don Miguel Ruiz
If we would cooperate with the angels in their work, we must put aside all selfish and self-centered thought and throw ourselves heart and soul into the service of others.
~ Dora Van Gelder
Angels are evidence that God is taking notice of us. They ask the same always: surrender, obedience, submission, and humility before the Holy One. Some say they make us homesick for heaven.
~ Megan McKenna
Angels rejoice as we befriend their companioning presence.
~ from LUMEN CHRISTI...HOLY WISDOM by Nan Merrill
There must be always remaining in everyone's life some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful, and by an inherent prerogative, throws all the rest of life into a new and creative relatedness, something that gathers up in itself all the freshets of experience from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright white light of penetrating beauty and meaning—then passes. The commonplace is shot through with new glory; old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the hardness of life, despite all the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.
~ from DEEP IS THE HUNGER by Howard Thurman, as reprinted in AN ALMANAC FOR THE SOUL by Marv and Nancy Hiles