October 2 is the feast of the Guardian Angels. Spirit messengers and agents of the Divine are found in many world religions that predate Christianity. Angels are also a big part of New Age spirituality.

Spirithome.com’s article on Why Angels? does a good job of reviewing traditional Christian views of angels and their place in the lives of Christians. (The site is an excellent information and inspiration resource. Be sure to check it out.)

If you want to review the traditional Catholic teaching on angels, take a look at Catholic Online. It can be a little technical but is also an excellent example of a highly rational post-Enlightenment type of theology.

Angels-Online is a site devoted to contemporary stories about people’s experiences of Angels. Some stories are better than others. However, they attest to the current fascination with Angels as a sign of God’s providence or as benevolent spirits in a world of “spirituality” without religion.

The persistence of Angels in people who adhere to religion or who embrace its early earth related forms is a sign of something deeper. People perceive activity in a realm beyond immediate physical reality. If we take a closer look at non-industrialized “primitive” people, as studied by anthropologists, we see that most everything in everyday life is explained in terms of spirits. This notion that the spiritual realm is the true realm is widespread throughout world religions, including Christianity.

The belief in Guardian Angels is a belief in God’s individual care and concern for all of us. For all of us post-moderns stuck in the here and now, Angels offer us a reminder. Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.