HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL
I was sitting in the hospital room with my infant son in my arms, not believing what I was hearing from the pediatrician. My little boy had a serious heart defect. We would have to stay in the hospital for a few more days while they figured out treatment options. Earlier in the day, he had been doing better after several days of treatment for pneumonitis. I was trying to get him home after already dealing with those treatments for the past week. But now this. As the pediatrician spoke to me, I tried to control my tears and make sense of this information. Though I was a nurse, I needed guidance and information to understand the implications. This was my baby, not a textbook case. As I talked with the doctor, I noticed two of my neighbours at the window of the room and I asked him to let them in when he was finished explaining the new diagnosis to me.
The physician had called my husband and told him what was going on. Tom left work early, praying for our son and for me. I spoke with my friends while Tom was frantically driving the fifty miles from work. I shared the news with Linda and Joan, and they listened with great care and compassion, and we all shed a few tears.
My first awareness of guardian angels is from grade one when, sitting at the old wooden school desk with the wide, hinged seat, and feeling that I needed to move to one side on the little bench so there was room for my angel beside me. I still remember moving over in my seat and feeling bad when I forgot to make room.
Going forward a few decades to my son’s illness, I learned that my husband’s prayer included a request for God to send an angel to be with me until we could be together. When Tom arrived at the hospital, he sprinted up the stairs to the hospital room. Through my tears, I was able to tell him about our baby’s heart problem. I told him of the timely visit with our neighbours and how good it was to have someone to talk with. Then he told me about his prayer and when he shared that, I started crying again. This time these were not tears of grief. I said, “God didn’t send an angel to be here.” After a second of initial confusion, Tom understood and together we said, “God sent two!!” Instead of feeling grief and anxiety, I was feeling comforted, grateful, and somehow optimistic that we would be ok, even with a special needs baby.
It is very comforting to think of God being present to us, to protect us, to lead us. And the idea that a guardian angel is a special angel that was personally assigned, was gifted to me, to each of us when we were first born is a source of wonder, gratitude and love. Perhaps there are many times when we have been protected from bad things happening and not even thought about a spiritual guardian.
The Catholic church has a special feast day to recognize these Holy Angels that are meant to be our guides. Popes and other religious leaders have spoken about how we are to relate to our guardian angel. My experience gained through that answered prayer has helped me with many a challenging health experience or accident and other life challenges. That blessing we experienced gave new meaning to having a holy guardian angel.
God’s intercession in our lives is real and whether we ask God in humility or desperation for help or when God answers our prayers with the provision of an angel, or maybe two, in human form, we can be grateful and share the stories.
Though the traditional “Angel of God” prayer of children may be deeply embedded in your memory, a different version might help to refocus and reconsider the place for our guardian angels:
Angel sent by God to guide me,
be my light and walk beside me;
be my guardian and protect me;
on the paths of life direct me.
Amen.
Jeanne Lambert combines her experiences as a parish and community nurse and her music ministry, and she continues to find ways to include music in pastoral care and community hospice work. Jeanne has many diverse writings and presentations to her credit on family life, grief, wholistic health care and spiritual reflection.
