There really are angels

¡feliz #24 cumpleaños Michelle Josefa!

Born 24 years ago today, we named Michelle after St. Michael, whose feast she shares. Not coincidentally, Michelle has always been close to angels, especially her patron St. Michael. As a preschooler, she assured  me that she could see his big wing covering her like a blanket as she slept.

When I once asked how she found the courage to defend a classmate in grade school, she smiled a toothless grin. “That’s easy, I just asked St. Michael to help me.” In high school she asked her guardian angel more than once to talk to her friend’s guardian angel to help them resolve misunderstandings.

And, obviously, it was St. Michael’s protection that I sought as Michelle and her siblings learned to drive!

I remember being surprised to find out that there are at least 17 New Testament references to angels, most of whom appeared to someone at a critical moment. But I also believe that God’s guardians are always with me, reminding me that I’m not alone.

In her poem, “Angels,” Polish poet and writer Anna Kamieńska seems to share this same conviction:

There are angels there really are angels

they catch every sound idea with the fishing-rod of intelligence

and from pails full of truth pour a bit for good luck

they bake cake poach fish in white wine

they like good jokes

the whites of their eyes shine with laughter 

and we don’t know whether in a moon-bound vehicle

one won’t on the sly squeeze into a space suit

Their calves are too strong as in Flemish paintings

they are corporeal like pale oxen at the stream

but a fiercely kind force is in them

a friendly breeze billows their robes

They sit quietly in a waiting room at the dentist

in an empty chair and are the last to enter

A long silence trails behind them

that’s how you can recognize there are angels

You can read here the entire poem, "Angels," and others in Kamieńska's collection, ASTONISHMENTS [pages 14-15] (Paraclete Press).