Angels and the Catholic Faith
Angels and ministers of grace defend us! (Shakespeare) "I now recant on the angel front for two reasons," Callahan states, as she recounts the account of how she, as a Catholic woman, once repelled by hype about angels, changed her position on angels. "The emphasis on angels in the liturgy, religious writing and Catholic tradition has overcome her skepticism," the woman said. (Callahan) "First, just because a belief is crudely distorted doesn't mean that there's not a core of truth present. Second, there's such a weight of scriptural and liturgical testimony to the existence of angels. . . . compelling testimony to angels appears in every Mass. . . . Angels are too strong an element in the tradition to be omitted. . . ." (Ibid) Callahan says that although she could not locate a single index entry on angels in a two-volume work on Roman Catholic systematic theology she purchased, she chooses to accept angels' existence "on the authority of the tradition and have only one other hard-won insight. . . .I accept the existence of angels as an element of the mysterious reality of God's plenitude."
among the first creations of God, so they are fellow creatures with us. " (McCombs) The Angel of Death Throughout history, angels have not only been identified as guardians, they are also portrayed as messengers; protectors; avengers of wrong, and ultimately the ones who accompany humans through what David termed in Psalm 23, "the valley of the shadow of death". Matthew: an "angel of the Lord" rolled back the stone in front of the sepulcher on the third day after the Crucifixion "and sat upon it. /May they lead you to a new day/Where the holy ones have trod," from the song, "Paradise," written by a former Catholic monk, ignited a controversy during 2001. Media presentations have ranged from "Touched by an Angel," (TV show airing stories of angelic interventions into human's lives) to the guardian angel in "It's a Wonderful Life" to the diabolical "angel" portrayed in "Damn Yankees" and the good-intentioned, yet imperfect "Michael. Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor and that of Jesus himself. He reminds those who attend his angelology seminars that in the Biblical accounts when angels appear to men, they usually reassure them with: "Fear not! . Angels remind humans that God is always with them; that He is everywhere. Thomas Aquinas's teaching, like the official teaching of the Church, consciously keeps teaching on angels subordinate to more central truths of Catholic doctrine. She invokes their assistance (in the funeral liturgy's In Paradisum deducant te angeli.
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Acceptance Essays
