C (1:50)

Right. So angels are actually all over the place in scripture. So after you watch this episode, if you're, you know, doing your readings or at mass, you'll probably notice the angels a lot more than you might think. One example I like to give of a place that people probably don't recognize it is in the story of the burning bush, where it says an angel of the Lord spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. But it only says that once, and then it's just God talking. And so people don't often recognize that it says it's an angel. So St. Augustine says that the entire dispensation of the Old Testament is managed by angels.

B (2:24)

I do Remember hearing that, that. Which is fascinating because you hear sometimes it's presented as God interacting very directly. And then all of a sudden there's like sometimes an angel there, as you're saying, with the burning bush.

C (2:35)

So, yeah, apparently angels are able to represent God to a very high degree.

B (2:39)

Okay.

C (2:40)

Look like him or have a likeness to him. We talked about that a little bit in our first episode on Sanctity. What does it mean to be a saint and holy? Well, what it means is sort of to participate in worship of God and share in his glory. So the angels share in God's glory to a very high degree. People are generally terrified when they see angels. And so this makes one think that they manifest sort of the. The glory and otherness of God in a very tangible way.

B (3:04)

Cool. So they're in Scripture.

C (3:07)

They're in Scripture. And so I thought what maybe we'd do, since we're covering archangels and guardian angels, they have specific feast days, was to first talk about the choirs of angels and the different names for angels in Scripture.

B (3:18)

Yes. And perhaps for some of you, you have heard this, perhaps you have not, but it is, you would probably say it's generally in the Catholic tradition to speak of the choirs of angels.

C (3:29)

The nine choirs of angels.

B (3:31)

What does that.

C (3:32)

Okay, so I want to have like kind of preface to the nine choir stuff. The choirs of angels is not considered like a day fide teaching of the church.

B (3:40)

What does that mean exactly?

C (3:41)

It means that you don't have to believe it. So if you don't like what I'm going to say or what Thomas Aquinas said about the ranks of angels, you're in good company. St. Augustine was like, well, we know there are different kinds of angels because Scripture talks about the seraphim and the cherubim and the thrones, but we don't know anything about them. Okay, that's what he says. But then you have a tradition starting in the 5th century with an author named Pseudo Dionysius, his work, the Celestial Hierarchy, which takes some of the kind of hints from Scripture and the names of the angels and arrays them in the nine choirs which have three levels. And this is then followed by figures like Gregory the Great. And then Thomas Aquinas dedicates eight articles to the choirs of angels in the summa known as the Angelic Doctor. So if you're really, really interested in the choirs of angels, I recommend you go read Thomas Aquinas. Actually, before I did my interview at the Augustine Institute, I. I had written on angels, Right. So my dissertation director Was like, you should really read Thomas Aquinas on the angels before you go give talk about angels to a Catholic institution. It's not very long. It is long. It's very long.

B (4:48)

You're saying your director said it wasn't long.

C (4:50)

He said it wasn't long. He's like, just skip over it. Because there's not only that on the choirs of angels, it's relative.

B (4:55)

It's subjective.

C (4:57)

Thomas Aquinas writes a lot about angels, but thankfully I skimmed it and was able to avoid any sort of major because I had just become Catholic major, sort of, you know, Catholic angel heresies or make any big missteps.

B (5:09)

So when it comes to the choirs of angels, would you call that speculative theology?

C (5:12)

Yes, Firmly in the realm of speculative theology. And the medievals really love to think about the angels because they're cool and also because they really loved the verse from Wisdom where it talks about God ordering all things with proper measure, number and weight. And so they like to think about kind of the ordering of the world, on how God's providence arranges all things. I think this is something to do with, like, the medieval genius of education not being hermetically sealed into, like, science and theology and geography or whatever. But these disciplines were all seen as kind of working together, as revealing God and revealing God's plan. And so they meditated a lot on these kinds of things. So not to put the medievals down, but also to inform you speculative theology.

B (5:54)

Okay, so we have these nine choirs that are broken into three different levels. And I'm assuming these are all you said they're kind of rooted in scripture, as in.

C (6:05)

Okay, so the names are all in scripture. The names of all the choirs in scripture, but, like, how they're ordered or related to one another is fairly speculative.

B (6:12)

Okay.

C (6:12)

Okay, so I'll give you the names of the choirs, starting from the highest choir.

B (6:16)

I'm ready.

C (6:17)

So, highest choir, the seraphim, then the cherubim, then the thrones. That's the first category. And then second category is dominions, virtues and powers. And the third category is principalities, archangels and angels. So actually, the two we're going to talk about, archangels and angels are the bottom. The bottom, lowest choirs. Why? Okay, why do they arrange this? Okay, the reason they arranged it this way is because they reasoned that the angels must be ordered according to their knowledge. Okay, why? Why it would be according to their knowledge? Because angels don't have bodies. So the only distinction between angels is in their intellect is in their knowledge. So the idea was that Just as human beings know the world in a different way from angels, so angels have a kind of differentiation of ways of knowing amongst themselves. So what I mean by us having different ways of knowing is that human beings have bodies and eyes and hands. So the way that we come to know things is we look at stuff and then we make generalizations from it. Right? So if we're trying to learn botany, we look at a whole bunch of daffodils, and then we're able to identify, well, this is a daffodil and this is a tulip based on, like, features. Angels do it the opposite way. They know general categories already. They perceive general principles and then move to particulars. You following me?

B (7:41)

Yeah.

C (7:41)

People always ask me about the choir, so I'm like, do you really want to know?

B (7:44)

I am interested. I am not with you.

C (7:47)

Okay.

B (7:48)

How do you move from a category into a particularity? Like, if you were to take that daffodil example, how would you invert that?

C (7:53)

Well, if you already know exactly, like, the perfection of daffodil ness and what constitutes a daffodil without looking, ever having looked at a daffodil.

B (8:03)

Okay, sure.

C (8:05)

Does that make sense?

B (8:06)

Yeah.

C (8:06)

Okay. So that's how they proceed in knowledge.

B (8:09)

Okay.

C (8:10)

From generalities to particulars. Okay, got it. So then the three choirs are the highest one are those who know, like, things most simply and closest to God.

B (8:20)

Okay.

C (8:21)

The second one are things who know the general causes of things. And the third order of angels are ones more concerned with particulars.

B (8:28)

Interesting.

C (8:29)

Okay. That's why angels and archangels are in the lowest.

B (8:32)

Okay.

C (8:32)

Because angel, as we talked about in a previous episode, is not the name of a nature or essence. It's the name of a job. Angel means messenger.

B (8:41)

Okay.

C (8:41)

So the angels that deal with us deal with particulars.

B (8:45)

Okay.

C (8:45)

So they have particular knowledge at the lowest rank. Okay? So seraphim means fiery ones. So, you know, being on fire, close to God.

B (8:55)

So. Okay. A little confusion, though. Would you call the seraphim an angel? Or is that kind of like a misnomer of.

C (9:01)

You know what I mean? So technically speaking, we call them all angels, but technically speaking, we should call them celestial spirits.

B (9:08)

That's what I was gonna. Okay. Cause angel, meaning messenger, but the seraphim.

C (9:11)

Are not messengers, not in this speculative theology. Not according to this way of parsing the angels.

B (9:18)

Okay. So we are assigning the name angel to all nine choirs.

C (9:23)

Okay. It's kind of like this. It's kind of like how my daughter calls all women mothers. They're all Mommies. She calls them all mommies.

B (9:31)

Agnes does that.

C (9:32)

It's not actually true that all, you know, women between 20 and 60 are mommies.

B (9:37)

We are using inaccurate language.

C (9:39)

So we're like little children, which is fitting. We only know the angel. We only know the angel. We don't know the seraphim. We only know the angels by the ones that talk to us.

B (9:46)

So we call them all angels.

C (9:47)

We call them all angels.

B (9:48)

But what we really mean is celestial spirits. Celestial beings.

C (9:53)

Yes.

B (9:53)

And then some of those celestial beings we would call angels because of their job, mission.

C (10:02)

Correct.

B (10:03)

Nailed it. All right.

C (10:04)

We're absolutely correct. Okay, so seraphim are the highest ones because their name means, like, that they're on fire. So the idea. And in Isaiah's vision, did you know that seraphim are only mentioned in Isaiah? That's the only place.

B (10:16)

No, I don't think I knew that.

C (10:17)

Anyway, so they're like, on a flame for God. So they're the highest ones, closest to God, who are thinking about things as closely as you can to being like God.

B (10:26)

Okay.

C (10:27)

Okay. Next is cherubim. So cherubim is a word that's associated with worship, but also was thought to have an etymological connection to knowledge, which it doesn't actually. But anyway, so there's second. Third is thrones. Throne is where God is seated. So these three have names that are kind of most related to the highest functions of heaven then dominions, virtues, and powers. And that or those words in that ordering are inspired by, like, Colossians 1:16 and Ephesians 121. You have, like, those names together. Those are considered to be kind of related to, like, general categories of things. General, general knowledge. So that's the second rank. And then principalities, archangels and angels are concerned with particulars, have names related to having problems over kind of particular things. So that's why they're the lowest rank.

B (11:11)

Okay, that's it. But for us, we're most concerned with archangels and angels because they deal in the particularities.

C (11:17)

Because they deal with us.

B (11:18)

Meaning we're particular.

C (11:19)

Yes. Right. So the lowly angels are the ones who deal with us. I mean, in some sense they're lower, but in some sense they have more amounts of knowledge insofar as God grants to the angels who are dealing with us knowledge of all the particulars. Because, like, the higher angels aren't necessarily interested in particulars. They know everything in their highest form. It'd be kind of like if you didn't have to take math class because you, like, already knew all the equations.

B (11:45)

Okay.

C (11:45)

So you wouldn't be very concerned with, like, doing your math homework because you already know all the general causes. But in some ways, they have more knowledge because they deal with more things. More. More actual things. Okay, so archangels, the name. The name Arc Arcade just means, like, beginning or first. So they're kind of just like the chief angels, the first, worst. So of the angels of the celestial spirits that do messaging work, they're the top. They're the chief ones. They're the chief of the angels. We get the word archangel, or at least St. Michael's calls an archangel in Jude 9. So that's how we know Michael is an archangel. Paul mentions archangels, but not by name. So Michael's an Archangel from Jude 9. And then Raphael, or Raphael. Tomato, tomato. He says in the book of Tobit that he's one of the seven angels that stands in the presence of God. Okay, so this is taken to mean that there are seven archangels and that Raphael is one of them. And then Gabriel in Luke chapter one says something almost identical. He doesn't say seven, but he says he's come from the presence of God or he's one that stands in the presence of God. So he's considered to be one of the seven. Okay, so we only know the names of three of the archangels. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael. But Tobit and Tobit, Raphael says there's seven.

B (13:07)

Okay.

C (13:08)

Now, there are apocryphal works that name all seven.

B (13:11)

Okay, but they're apocryphal.

C (13:14)

Well, one of them is first Enoch, which is actually considered canonical in the Ethiopian church. So it gets a little tricky. But at least in Western Christianity, veneration of the other archangels that are not named in canonical scripture was suppressed in the 9th century.

B (13:28)

Good to know. So don't do it.

C (13:29)

So don't do it. And if you're a Western Christian, but in the east, they have actually venerated the fourth one named Uriel. So actually, in my parish, there is an image of Uriel. It's a Byzantine parish. I was, like, really shocked when I. When I saw it. I was like, wait, that's supposed to be better reading this angel. Also, there are three holy doors, and there are, like, three that we actually know. So why we have this, like, weird fourth angel.

B (13:50)

Anyway, get them in there. So interesting.

C (13:52)

You're not allowed to do that unless you're, you know, Byzantine. But. But those are the names of the three archangels.

B (13:59)

So we know three for sure.

C (14:00)

Yep.

B (14:00)

Four through the apocryphal. And archangel. They are messengers, and the archangels are the first of the messengers.

C (14:07)

Right. And so you can see this in what they do. You know, kind of Raphael has a very specific mission in sort of announcing God's plan to Tobias and Tobit. You have Michael showing up in Daniel.

B (14:20)

Yep.

C (14:22)

And sort of foretelling things that are to come. And then Gabriel is the kind of the most obvious one who's announcing the incarnation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary. But it's not. So archangels and guardian angels, at least traditionally don't have, like, a strict difference.

B (14:38)

Okay.

C (14:39)

So we combine them because Michael, for example, was considered to be the guardian angel of the nation of Israel.

B (14:46)

Oh, interesting.

C (14:47)

And then. Then by extension, the church.

B (14:49)

Okay, but.

C (14:53)

And some people think Gabriel's the guardian angel of Mary.

B (14:56)

Cool. So an archangel could be a guardian angel, so to speak. But there are more guardian angels than just the archangels.

C (15:05)

Correct. Okay, so onto guardian angels.

B (15:08)

Tell us about guardian angels.

C (15:09)

So just kind of a basic point about guardian angels is that belief in guardian angels is very ancient and shows up in the New Testament. So it's not like a kind of, I don't know, spiritualization, hippie, sentimental thing. It is actually incredibly ancient. So there are two places. So in the Old Testament, there is a kind of the general sense that angels guard Israel. You can find this all over the place in the Psalms. But in the New Testament, you have two instances which suggest personal guardianship of angel. Like, there's an angel that guards each person. So one, the most famous one is in Matthew 18:10, where Jesus says, take care that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you, in heaven, they're angels. Continually see the face of my Father in heaven. And in this passage, right, Jesus is sort of emphasizing God's personal care of every one of his flock. And so you have the idea that there's, like, actually an angel appointed, a personal angel for each person. And then the other one is in Acts, in Acts, chapter 12, where Peter escapes from prison with the help of an angel, and he's like, knocking at the door. Right. And the people inside are like, it can't be Peter. It must be his angel. So there was a belief, personally. So there. It doesn't tell us a lot, but it tells us that there was kind of a belief in personal guardianship of angels.

B (16:25)

Okay. And what do guardian angels do, these personal angels?

C (16:30)

Right. So, I mean, there's kind of various things in the tradition about guardian angels. One of the most frequent images used for them is as shepherds.

B (16:38)

Okay.

C (16:39)

So they're actually kind of compared to, like, what we might think of as, like, our pastors on earth. So we might lament that maybe there's, like, not enough priests to go around, but there are enough angels to go around. And so every single person has a kind of like, individual shepherd or pastor for their soul. I mean, the way in which they help us, of course, is, like, mysterious, since angelic activity is not always evident to us. But we know that God works mysteriously his providence through people in our lives and events. And so he works similarly through his angels. There are a couple, like, specific areas that they're often associated with. One is shepherding our soul after death. That's one thing they're associated with. So in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, he's carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham. And there's that very beautiful in Paradisum prayer from the funeral mass, the Requiem Mass. You may know this prayer. May the angels lead you into paradise. May the martyrs receive you at your arrival and leave you to the holy city, Jerusalem. May choirs of angels receive you. And with Lazarus, once a poor man, may you have eternal rest.

B (17:38)

That is pretty.

C (17:40)

And this is often depicted in art as well, where you have angels sort of like escorting a soul to paradise. So maybe it's like, think about after the moment our death, the first person we're going to get to see is our guardian angel, and they'll be helping us out. So that's one area. Another area is in the matter of spiritual warfare. So in protection from evil spirits and demons, of course, we can have too much of like, a over, like, fascination with this and kind of like imagine our lives if it's a constant sort of like good angel, bad angel on our shoulder or something like that. And so that conception should not give us sort of spiritual turmoil. You know, if it's doing that, it's probably not a good interest, but rather peace and serenity, sort of knowing that good angels are more powerful than demons. Right. And that each. Each one of us has. So Thomas Aquinas has this. This beautiful quote about the guardian angels. The demons are ever assailing us. According to 1 Peter 5:8, your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour much more. Therefore, do the good angels ever guard us?

B (18:42)

Yeah, that's cool.

C (18:44)

And so, yeah, we can have a kind of peace and serenity. You know, we know that God is present everywhere in the world. We know that God is present in the mass. But human beings, like, we still, like, thrive on particulars. So there is a kind of special serenity in knowing that there is, like, a particular angel.

B (19:04)

There is a specific angel.

C (19:06)

And. Yeah. And the Fathers also thought not just a specific angel for each person, but for each perish. Because in Revelation, right, John writes to the angel of the church and for every nation. So if you're worried about your nation.

B (19:20)

Or your parish, pray to your nations.

C (19:22)

You know, there's an angel appointed to guard them.

B (19:25)

It is. And it shows the solicitude of God, too. Like. Yes. That, like, you know, God has this vast creation. And they're very, you know, as you said, like, we human beings here on Earth are helping each other out. And it is very fitting that through the celestial spirits that are the angels, that they are also interconnected with us and interacting with us and caring and protecting us.

C (19:48)

And if you think about, even just briefly, what we talked about, the choir of the angels, intellectually, the angels are superior to us. And so the fact that God puts creatures of such dignity at our surface, and that they do it gladly because they do the will of God always, is a kind of beautiful thought. I think it's. I can't remember if it's either Eusebius or Origen says that at every Mass there's a twofold church because there's us and then our guardian angels who come with us. And so there's a kind of celestial. Celestial congregation at every liturgy.

B (20:24)

That's cool. Okay. I have heard before of people trying to name their guardian or discover the name of their guardian angel.

C (20:30)

Okay.

B (20:30)

What would you say about such a thing?

C (20:31)

Well, uh, there's a document from the Congregation of Divine Worship called the Directory on Popular Piety, which specifically talks about sort of healthy and unhealthy devotion to angels, among many other things. But it's in there. It says specifically not to name your guardian angel. Um, I. I don't know. Like. I know, like, the distinction of, like, discovering the name of your guardian angel maybe is a little bit different, but it seems like if there's something, I mean, from the Vatican that says, like, this is no go territory. Probably better just to not do that.

B (21:01)

Yeah. I would say, you know, that it is probably my reading that would be it's best not to work too hard to try to have a name for your guardian angel. Know the name of your guardian angel. It's enough to know you have a guardian angel, and it's enough to just pray to your guardian angel.

C (21:15)

They know their name, obviously. You know, there Are experiences of saints, you know, have particular revelations of their guardian angel. If that happens to you, Amazing.

B (21:23)

Yep.

C (21:24)

But I think it gets into a little bit dangerous or tricky territory when you're trying to divine spiritual things.

B (21:29)

Kind of what I mean, it's a control.

C (21:30)

Like, usually naming is an aspect of control.

B (21:34)

That's what I was gonna say. Like, God is ultimately other and he can reveal whatever he wants to us, and we should receive that. But when we try to go out and figure something out, there's an element of. Yeah, you're just. You want to control that. Like, perhaps there's. You don't need. You don't.

C (21:52)

And the three named angels that we do have, their names all specifically point to God and to worship of God. So the name Michael means who is like God, question mark. Right. So sort of like the leader of the heavenly hosts. Right. His name is a kind of non name.

B (22:10)

Yeah.

C (22:10)

As a kind of abdication to the worship of God. Gabriel means God is my strength, and Raphael means God heals.

B (22:17)

Yep. So they're just telling you about God.

C (22:19)

So. Yeah. So all the angels. So St. Augustine says that you shouldn't treat angels as if they're like evil servants that you can bribe on the outside of God's household. Right. Like, and I hopefully none of us quite think this way about either saints or angels, but it's not like a backdoor to God's attention. Right. They're like good servants who. Who serve the one master and desire us to worship him together with them.

B (22:42)

How would you say? So how. How can we deepen our relationship with our guardian angels?

C (22:46)

Yeah. So actually the. That same document from the congregation on Divine Worship, the director on popular piety has kind of three ways that you can think about the guardian angels and sort of develop more devotion to them. So one, as I already said, is gratitude. So meditating on the fact that God has put such great powerful beings who are in many ways superior to us, like, at our service. So one is. Yeah. Cultivation of gratitude. Number two is increased piety and reverence. So this is referring to what I was talking about, the twofold congregation at Mass, that if we are able to cultivate even, like, a small measure of awareness of the fact that we are participating in the heavenly liturgy and that angels are attendant at the altar and our attendant at the liturgy, that this will maybe, like, lessen our boredom and increase our sense of fear of the Lord and reverence at the liturgy. So that's the second one. And of course, one of the main places to do this is when we're singing the Sanctus. So holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts. 7 Earth is holes is glory. This is the song that Isaiah hears the seraphim singing. And it's the song that's heard at the end of revelation. So this, that moment is supposed to signal you to the fact that we are. There's only one worship of God. There's only one liturgy. And we are participating in that very liturgy. We're participating in that worship, which the angels always do without ceasing. In the Eastern liturgy, they actually say, let us who mystically represent the cherubim, now set aside all earthly cares.

B (24:20)

That's cool.

C (24:21)

At that same time, so you're supposed to be like, I'm not worried about what I'm going to make for dinner.

B (24:26)

I'm kind of not on earth anymore.

C (24:28)

I'm not on earth. Right. I'm in heaven. So that's number two. And then number three I kind of briefly mentioned already was serenity and their protection. And so when feeling troubled in spirit about events in your life or maybe even about. Maybe you even have some kind of spiritual oppression to have sort of recourse pre your garden garden guardian angel, and have the serenity to know that God has appointed one specifically to your own guardianship.

B (24:54)

And then there's the classic kind of guardian angel prayer. We've been teaching it to our kids, but. Oh, guardian angel. Oh my gosh, I can't think of it. O angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here ever this day be at my sight, to light, to guard, to rule and to guide. Also a good prayer.

C (25:08)

When I was a little girl, I used to write letters to my guardian angels.

B (25:10)

That's awesome. I love that.

C (25:12)

Is that I spelled it angle.

B (25:13)

That's okay. They know.

C (25:14)

They knew.

B (25:15)

They're not worried.

C (25:16)

Okay. But I didn't try to name it.

B (25:17)

But the angels are great. Dr. Klein, thank you for walking us through so much. This was a particular episode on the choirs of Angels, the Archangels and the angels. And we also did episodes on what is a saint? What is an angel? Why does the church canonize certain people? What are relics? So you can type into the search bar those other episodes if you want to find a little bit more. And another call out to Dr. Klein wrote a book that is going to be published with Ave Maria Press. It is available for pre order now and if you listen to this episode or watch this episode later, it'll be available for purchase then. Dr. Klein, do you have any parting comments about saints, angels, or what is in between.

C (25:55)

I love talking about the saints and angels, so thanks for letting me do so.

B (25:58)

It is a great joy. So thank you everyone for joining us on Catholic Saints.

A (26:04)

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