By Stephen P. White

But first a note: TCT's Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal will join host Raymond Arroyo on 'The World Over' tonight (October 2, 2025) at 8:00 PM to discuss the ongoing controversy over the decision of Chicago's Cardinal Blase Cupich to honor pro-choice Sen. Dick Durbin. It's all you need to know about the scandal. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.

Now for today's column...

"Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here. Ever this day be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule, and guide. Amen."

I don't know how many times in my life I have prayed these words. Many thousands, no doubt. It was among the first prayers I ever learned, being part of the nightly routine of my childhood, and I have taught it to my own children as we say bedtime prayers. It is not only a bedtime prayer, to be sure, and bears frequent repetition at any time of night or day. If any further inducement were needed, devout recitation of this venerable prayer carries a partial indulgence.

The prayer itself is surprisingly ancient, originating at least as early as the eleventh or twelfth century. Reverence for angels, of course, is much older, as even a passing familiarity with both the Old and New Testaments will show. Particular devotion to the guardian angels, whose feast day is today (October 2), dates to the earliest centuries of the Church. St. Basil the Great taught in the fourth century that, "each and every member of the faithful has a Guardian Angel to protect, guard and guide them through life."

Pope St. John XXIII (whose devotion to angels may have had something to do with his baptismal name, Angelo) exhorted the faithful to pray to their guardian angels and often. "Everyone of us is entrusted to the care of an angel," he said, "That is why we must have a lively and profound devotion to our own guardian angel, and why we should often and trustfully repeat the dear prayer we were taught in the days of our childhood."

For many of us, the Guardian Angel Prayer is so closely associated with childhood that it can sometimes be easy to associate the devotion to angels with childishness, a mistake made all the more common by the gauzy depictions of guardian angels which are regularly found in Catholic kitsch. But guardian angels are not the spiritual equivalent of Lassie.

The Catechism reminds us, quoting St. Augustine, that, "'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you seek the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit', from what they do, 'angel.'" In Greek, an angel is a messenger.

The center of the angelic world, this world of messenger servant-spirits, is none other than Christ Himself, because, as the Catechism continues, "They are his angels. . . They belong to him because they were created through and for him."



Immortal beings, pure intellect and will, who eternally behold the face of the Father (Mt. 18:10 ) and who perfectly serve Christ the Lord are not to be taken lightly. Which is to say, real guardian angels are not at all like the bumbling, though lovable, Clarence from "It's a Wonderful Life." They are creatures, but they are not bumbling and they are not human.

Not human and also higher than humans. Translations of Psalm 8 differ, but the author of Hebrews cites the psalm thus, "What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels." (emphasis added.)

St. Thomas Aquinas asked whether angels are more to the image of God than man is, to which he responded, "we must grant that, absolutely speaking, the angels are more to the image of God than man is, but that in some respects man is more like to God."

The mystery of the Incarnation sheds the fullest light on the implication of the Imago Dei for human creatures, but the mag...