Friday, April 11
The Guardian Angel, Marcantonio Franceschini (1716) — Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
Imagine you are beside Christ in the Garden, the night before his Passion. You are not sleeping, like His disciples; rather, as the night draws on, you are drawing Jesus into your arms, comforting Him as He cries out to his Father. Perhaps His sweat and blood are on your clothes, His tears on your hands. Perhaps His Sacred Head is bowed upon your shoulder as you give Him encouragement to face the torture ahead.
This was the mission entrusted to the angel who “appeared to [Jesus] and strengthened Him” while He prayed that “the cup pass away” in Luke 22:43. And what a beautiful mission, what a beautiful blessing to contemplate: in those moments of intense anguish, God sends one of His holy angels to comfort His Son.
Church tradition holds that each individual angel was created for a specific purpose in the Kingdom of God, with purposes ranging from the great messenger Gabriel to the angel guiding the migration of butterflies. There are angels whose entire purpose was to proclaim God’s birth to the shepherds, or protect trees, or of course our own guardian angels. All these angels have one mission, to be performed perfectly in accordance with God’s will. Each of their spirits is molded for a simple, specific purpose, entrusted to them from before time, and there was no detail of God’s creation too small to deserve one.
The angel that comforted Christ in the Garden was no different. Maybe it was Christ’s guardian angel, or perhaps it was an entirely unique angel, created just for that moment in human history. Either way, what a beautiful thought: Here in the Garden, where God’s Son is overwhelmed in anxiety and anguish, God the Father made certain there was an angel created to strengthen Him. What a wonderful mystery on which to meditate—there is an angel created for even this terrible moment, as the Son of God sweats blood in fear. What a gift; what a blessed, holy angel.
Ask this angel to bring you closer to Christ. Ask your own angel, the one whose mission is you, to do the same. Ask them to console you in your own agonies; ask them how you might help console the heart of Christ in his.
We are fast approaching Holy Week. Each year as we relive this beautiful mystery, the angels—existing outside of time—are present both to us and to the Passion simultaneously. Meditate on the perfection of God as manifested in these invisible spirits, who, through God’s help, govern the entire world around you. Thank God for their protection and ask them to bring you deeper into the mysteries which they proclaim with their very existence. No detail is too small for God. Praise Him for that, and let the existence of angels reignite your wonder and awe of life, of history, and of God Himself.
Rebekah Balick is a writer and artist based in Alexandria, VA.
You can find out more about her here.