By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christians have guardian angels to
encourage and guide them so they won’t become sluggish on their journey in life, Pope Francis
said.
Without the guidance of angels, men and women who become
settled in their ways and put “their life on hold” are in danger of
becoming like stagnant water, the pope said Oct. 2 in his homily during morning
Mass in the Domus
Sanctae Marthae.
“So many people don’t know how to walk or are afraid of
taking a risk and they remain still,” the pope said. “But we know the rule is that
a person who is stationary ends up stagnating like water. When water is still, the mosquitos come,
they lay eggs and ruin
everything. The angel helps us, he pushes us to walk.”
Commemorating the day’s feast of the Guardian Angels, the pope quoted from the Book of
Exodus in which God promises the people of Israel that he is
“sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way and bring you to the
place I have prepared.”
Guardian angels, the pope said, are the help “the Lord promises his people
and us who walk
along the path of life.”
As companions and protectors, he continued, guardian angels
are like “a human compass or a compass that resembles a human being and
helps us see where we should go” to avoid dangers along the way.
Christians, he added, should heed God’s command to “be
attentive and obey” their guardian angel and listen to “their
inspirations, which are always from the Holy Spirit.”
“I would like to ask you all a question: Do you speak
to your angel?” the pope asked. “Do you know the name of your angel?
Do you listen to your angel? Do you let yourself be taken by the hand along the
path or pushed to move?”
By obeying their guardian angels, he said, Christian men and
women can avoid the dangers of taking the wrong path or, worse, leaving the
path and going “from one place to another like in a labyrinth that
ensnares.”
He encouraged Christians to pray and speak to their guardian
angel who “is not only with us but also sees God the father.”
“The angel is the daily door toward transcendence, to
the encounter with the Father,” Pope Francis
said. “The angel helps me walk along the path because he looks at the Father who knows the way.
Let us not forget this traveling companion.”
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