When we pray the penitential act at mass, we ask the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the angels and the saints, who are the angels and how do we know if they really exist? Let’s go to the explanation given by St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church: “The name of an angel indicates his office, not his nature. If you ask about his nature, I will tell you that he is a spirit; if you ask about what he does, I will say that it is an angel” (CCC 329), then we understand that angels are spiritual beings created by God and we accept this as a truth of faith (CCC 328). We profess this truth of faith every time we recite the creed by saying: “…creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” The angels do the will of God (Psalms 103:20) since they are always in the presence of God and see his face (Matthew 18:10).
Being Catholics, we cannot deny the existence of angels, since they are mentioned multiple times in the Scriptures, starting in Genesis where God put an angel to guard the Garden of Eden after the expulsion of Adam and Eve after having fallen into sin (Genesis 3:24), all through the book of Revelations where angels are mentioned 73 times. Even the devil acknowledges their existence when tempting our Lord (Matthew 4:6), he takes Him to the
pinnacle of the temple and citing the Scripture tells Him to launch from there, since “the Angels will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (Psalms 91:11-12).
The tradition of the Church even tells us that each of us has a guardian angel (CCC 336) placed by God himself to guide us on the right path and protect us, just like they did to Moses (Exodus 23:20), Elijah (1 Kings 19:5), Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego (Daniel 3:24-25) among many other prophets and faithful devoted to God.
Let us continue to join the heavenly choir of angels every time we participate in the mass by singing or reciting the Gloria, just as they did to announce the arrival of the Savior of the World and Redeemer of humanity (Luke 2:10-14)