I think it was last night that one of the evening news programs presented a short report on the high percentage of Americans who believe in angels. That prompts me to say a few words about Luther's Morning and Evening Prayers. In his Small Catechism (which I had to memorize at a young boy), Luther provides instructions on "How the head of the family should teach his household to pray morning and evening." Within those instructions, Luther urges that I ask the Heavenly Father to "let Thy holy angel be with me, that the wicked foe may have no power over me." In the Defense of the Augsburg Confession those who agreed with Luther said that they "grant that the angels pray for us," that is, because we need protection, the angels pray for our salvation.One of my favorites hymns, "Ye Watcher and Ye Holy Ones," is a song addressed (the technical term for the rhetorical figure is apostrophe, a turning aside and speaking to someone or something not visibly present) to the seraphs, cherubim, among other heaveny dignitaries and saints. In the second stanza, we singers ask the Blessed Virgin Mary (she who is "higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim") to "lead their praises"; that is, we ask the Mother of God to be our lead voice as we sing praises to God with the angelic choirs.
In the Eucharistic Liturgy, as a preface to our singing the Sanctus--Holy! Holy! Holy!-- the pastor chants or says, "Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, and the whole Company of Heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, singing . . . ." During the Liturgy we join our voices with the heavenly choir. We sing to God with angels.
In the prayerbook June and I use for Evening Prayer, after singing Psalm 141, there's a quiet call for meditative silence (allowing perhaps a review of the day), and then we say these words:
Let the incense of our repentant prayer ascend before you, O Lord, and let your loving kindness descend upon us, that with purified minds we may sing your praises with the Church on earth and the whole heavening host, and may glorify you forever and ever.
After that prayer, we sing several Psalms, aware that we are singing with "the whole heavenly host," that is, with all the saints and all the angels.
Sometimes when I'm with a small group of Christians gathered for worship and I find the sanctuary a bit empty of people, I like to remind myself that the place is crowded with the angelic hosts, who are always presenting themselves with us before God. There is no such thing as an "empty" church. The pews are filled with the choirs of angels.
I confess that generally speaking, I no longer use Luther's Morning and Evening Prayers (using instead the more traditional and historical daily offices). June and I do, however, pray before we travel from Kentucky to Georgia and back, asking God to send his accompanying angels with us as we speed down the highways at 70 mph. We need all the protection we can get.
All of which is to say that as I grow older, I'm also much more aware of who is with me. So I'm wondering: does the presence of angels and your awareness of their protection and assistance in worship find expression in your prayer life and adoration of God? Just curious.
2 comments:
Not at all, Andrew. But I think they deserve more notice and such attention from us.
I don't see what's wrong with asking God to send his angels to help us. They do indeed have a special place and should be honored by us in that.
But like me, I'm afraid hardly a thought of them is present for many of us Christians, except when we read of them in Scripture.
This will sound rather pedestrian compared with Andy's post and Ted's comment thereto, but here goes anyway. A few years ago there was a movie out, and I can't remember what it was called, that basically supposed that angels are all around us all the time. I think an angel falls in love with the person he's sent to protect and has to decide whether to remain an angel or return to human form. It starred Meg Ryan, Nicholas Cage and Andre Braugher. Didn't do much popularly or critically, and really wasn't anything special as a movie, but a part of it has stuck with me ever since -- as the movie opened, we saw various people in stressful situations (surgeon, person going through the death of a loved one, etc.), and with each new scene we saw the angel helping the person through the situation. Sometimes they were standing vigil, sometimes they were laying on hands and, as I recall (and my memory may be adding positive embellisments, but I don't think so), sometimes they were literally holding the person, hugging them, and whispering assurances to them. I sat there in the theater, for whatever reason having chosen to see this movie by myself, crying my eyes out. I've resisted the temptation to ever watch the movie again, lest I discover that the opening montage is not as powerful as it remains in my memory.
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