Category: Dogma

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Do angels really exist?

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)

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Three persons, One God… How is this possible?

The Holy Trinity, three persons, one God… how is this possible? The mystery of the Holy Trinity has long occupied the thoughts of Christianity. How is it possible to understand this? The first thing we must do is go to the scriptures to find out why we say that God is one but in three persons. The first clue is in the first commandment “I am the Lord your God… You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:1-3) God himself is declaring that there is only one God, let us now turn to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets… For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law…”  (Matthew 5:17-18), Jesus did not come to change God’s law but to enforce it. After his resurrection Jesus sends the apostles on a mission saying: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), He does not just mentions God the Father or himself as God the Son, but names directly the three persons of the Holy Trinity. If Jesus did not come to change the law in the slightest, the first commandment stands even with the declaration of the Divine Trinity.

If we go deeper into the Scriptures, we don’t have to go any further than the first verse of the first book of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) If we take the original Hebrew in which this passage is written, the name of God used here is “Elohim”, in Hebrew the ending “-im” is indicative of a plural noun; but in this passage it is followed by a verb used in its singular conjugation, indicating that the three persons of the Trinity make up one God, not three separate ones. If we continue, in the creation of the human being we find the following: “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26) here God is using the plural to refer to himself.

The Old Testament has many passages that point to the Trinity, but let’s go back to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ addressing the apostles: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:21-22), here again Jesus reveals to us the persons of the Trinity.

Let us joyfully declare this dogma of the faith every time we make the sign of the cross, saying “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, thus attesting that the name of God is one and God is expressed in the three persons of the Holy Trinity.