Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin
+JMJ+
Interesting. I think it was Mother Angelica who was saying how important it is to name our Guardian Angels. I’ve always loved my Guardian Angel, and I’m not sure how I’d take it if I had to share him with someone else after I die. 🙂
P.S. Happy St. Valentine’s Day!
I hope the above statement was not from Mother Angelica. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy from the CDF (Dec 2001) states the following:
217. Popular devotion to the Holy Angels, which is legitimate and good, can, however, also give rise to possible deviations:
[…]
when the daily events of life, which have nothing or little to do with our progressive maturing on the journey towards Christ are read schematically or simplistically, indeed childishly, so as to ascribe all setbacks to the Devil and all success to the Guardian Angels. The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture.
It looks like someone is doing karate in the background right around the 2:00 mark.
This is great. Thanks again for another insightful answer. I read a book, Beyond Space – A Book About the Angels by Pascal Parente, back when I was in college that helped me to understand angels in a more Catholic perspective. Its been almost twenty years since I read it but as I remember it was very good.
Are the answers to such questions really important? I mean you can’t really offer a “concrete” answer and it’s anyone’s guess what happens to guardian angels after we die.
How is that supposed to contribute to our understanding of God’s plan for us?
I’m sorry to be such a wet blanket, but really …