Do angels intervene in our lives?

“In my life as a priest, I’ve witnessed, on many occasions, real evidence of the presence of the holy angels, especially when caring for the sick and the dying as a hospital chaplain.”

The speaker is Fr. John Horgan, who recently visited EWTN to discuss his new book, “His Angels At Our Side: Understanding Their Power in Our Souls and the World,” http://bit.ly/HisAngelsAtOurSide.

One powerful personal story from Father’s book, EWTN Publishing’s newest offering, centers around a devout wife, who found herself abandoned and eventually divorced by her philandering husband. The woman had a hard life raising their children on her own. But, as often happens, when the philandering husband contracted cancer, his trophy wife deserted him. Despite her husband’s behavior, the faithful wife not only visited her husband in the hospital, she brought in their now adult children to reconcile with their father.

The faithful wife always insisted that, one day, her husband would be baptized. However, the man refused the sacrament during their marriage and he refused it every time Father Horgan offered it to him even though he knew he was dying. The wife remained undeterred. She told Fr. Horgan she had been praying to her own guardian angel and to her husband’s, and she was confident the man would be baptized before his death.

One Sunday morning, Father swung by the man’s room. After spending the entire night ministering to the sick and dying in the emergency room, he was more than a little tired! So he admits he said with some exasperation: “‘Your wife has been so faithful to you. You don’t deserve it. Will you be baptized?’” To Father’s surprise, the man expressed sorrow for his sins and agreed!

In his book, Father describes what happened next: “I began to prepare the oils and the holy water for Baptism. But as I was about to begin the ritual, unmistakably I heard a voice within my mind that said, “NOW!” And so, without any further delay, I took the water in a small medicine cup, poured it on the man’s forehead saying the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And before I could say, ‘Amen,’ he died. There was no distress; he simply closed his eyes and was gone. He had gone home to God.”

In the book, Father says what he most remembers was the look in his wife’s eyes when he later relayed the news. “Her faith and goodness, fire-tried by years of suffering, had grown so strong that it broke down all his interior resistance and called down the infinite love of God Made Man.”

However, immediately after the husband died, Father called in the on-duty nurse, who was a fallen away Catholic. He said, “[Name withheld], he’s dead.” She replied: “What do you mean? What did you do?” Said Father: “I baptized him.” She said: “You baptized him and he died right then? And everything is forgiven?” Father nodded. Because she knew the story, the nurse shook her head and muttered a choice word about the dead man. But Father said the experience had an impact on the nurse. “Ten years later, she herself died in another palliative care unit – with all the sacraments!”

The above is just one of the many stories Father Horgan shares in book, “His Angels at Our Side.” What’s best about the book is that it teaches readers how to pray to their angel in a life-transforming way. Readers learn about the choirs of angels and their roles, how angels impacted the lives of Biblical figures, and how they impacted the lives of the saints. Best of all, they learn how angels continue to influence the lives of people like you and me.

Father says, if we ask, the angels can teach us how to praise and adore God. They can also help us to understand the role of suffering in our lives, especially when someone we love dies, and they can help us make acts of faith and trust in God even, and most especially, in the worst circumstances.

“[When someone dies], we have to have permission to grieve and be angry,” Father said. “It’s never easy to grieve. It is easy to get angry. Three out of five times, someone will get mad at you for no good reason when arranging a funeral. To be angry and believe you are fighting for somebody makes you feel good. ‘Of course, THIS was her favorite song,’ [the angry mourner will say.]”

But Father says there is a better way. “In terms of our grief, we can say to the Lord: ‘I am angry that she [or he] is gone and I’m angry that she left me alone. But Lord, I will be more lonely than I am right now if I don’t have a relationship with you because I know that the only way I can have a relationship with her still is through you.’”

Father says it also helps to remember this:

“When we’re in heaven, we will understand God’s plan so perfectly that we will look back on our life and the lives of all who’ve ever lived and we will say: ‘The way you did things was exactly right.’ The angels see the perfection and we, through them, come to see more clearly the perfection of God’s plan. [The angels can help us pray the words with faith], ‘I may not understand why or how now, but when I see You face to face, I believe You will answer all my questions and I will have peace.’”

Father Horgan says it is a tradition in the Church that every angel gets to be a Guardian Angel only once – and our Guardian Angels become, in a special way, our companion in heaven. “There is one angel for every human being until the end of time! Our angel is sent to guard, protect, and reveal Christ to us; to help us understand the love of God for His creation in a deeper way.”

In his book, Father says he speaks about the power of silence in prayer (often referring to Cardinal Robert Sarah’s book, “The Power of Silence,” http://bit.ly/SARAHPowerofSilence) as well as the importance of praying when we least feel like it.

“At the end of a long day, when we are very tired, that’s when the Lord comes to us and says, ‘Tell me that you love me.’ You may want to say, ‘Not now.’ But that’s an opportunity for grace and you don’t want to miss it. Angels knock at the door in these little moments of grace and you don’t want to miss receiving them.”

Father notes that many of the saints had a special relationship with the angels, who “can help us perceive the deeper meaning of the events in the life of Our Lord.”

Father says it was, perhaps, St. Veronica’s guardian angel who prompted her to wipe the blood and mud from the face of Jesus. In making this small sign of love and comfort, he says, the face of Jesus was not just impressed upon the cloth but, first and more importantly, on St. Veronica’s soul.

“Jesus wants to be impressed in your soul,” says Father Horgan. “He wants you to love Him and be the chalice in which He rests.”

Find out how your own Guardian Angel can help you to better love and be a chalice for the Lord when you read EWTN Publishing’s newest book: “His Angels at Our Side” by Father John Horgan, which is available now from EWTN Religious Catalogue, http://bit.ly/HisAngelsAtOurSide. For more behind the scenes interviews, don’t miss Fr. Horgan’s appearances on “Bookmark,” http://bit.ly/HorganBookmarkAngels, and on “EWTN Live,” http://bit.ly/HorganEWTNLiveAngels.