Jesus and His Angels

Homily for Monday, September 29, 2025
The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels
John 1:47-51

St. Thomas Aquinas is called the “Angelic Doctor” not because of an exceedingly pious lifestyle, nor because of a “cherubic” appearance.  Rather, St. Thomas received the moniker because of the extent to which in his Summa Theologica and other writings he asks and answers questions about angels.  For example, “Whether an Ange lis Altogether Incorporeal.”  Thomas answers,that because the universe was created through God’s intellect and will, and because God’s creation reflects the nature of the Creator, and because God’s intellect and will are not corporeal, there must be within God’s universe creatures who are only intellect and will with no bodies – these creatures are the angels.  Or again, Thomas asks, “Whether Angels Sometimes Assume Bodies,” and he answers that, while in many cases an angel appeared only to one person and therefore might be said to be a product of that person’s imagination, yet “just as the angels who appeared to Abraham were seen by him and his whole family, by Lot, and by the citizens of Sodom;[and] in like manner the angel who appeared to Tobias was seen by all present” (STIa, 51,2), so must it follow that angels “sometimes assume bodies” (Ibid).  Or yet again, Thomas asks, “Do Angels Exercise Functions of Life in the Bodies Assumed?” That is, “Are They Really Alive?”  Thomas writes that angels do not, strictly speaking, see or hear or taste or even speak as do other living beings.  So, No, he concludes, angels are not really alive (ST Ia 51,3, ad 1-6).

What surprises me most about Thomas’ writings about angels is not so much what he said about angels but the extent to which he said them. The Creed says nothing about angels; our Catechism says nothing about angels; the Thirty-Nine Articles say nothing about angels; but Thomas... ?

“Are angels entirely spiritual, or do they have bodies?” people wondered, and Thomas answered.  “Are they alive?” people asked, and Thomas answered.  “How many are there?”  “Are there different kinds?”  “Can angels be in several places at once?”  “Can several angels be in thes ame place at once?”  “Do some angels know more than others?”  “Does an angel know himself?”  “Do angels speak with ach other?”  “Is each person assigned a guardian angel?”  “When does an angel’s guardianship of a person begin?”  “Does an angel grieve when the person it guards dies?”  “Can an angel work miracles?” “Can an angel chang a person’s will?”  “Can one angel change another angel’s will?”  Thomas goes on(and on!) answering these and many, many more questions about angels.  The “angelic doctor” wrote extensively about angels, presumably because, if angels didn’t pique his imagination, they piqued the imaginations of those around him; and they had questions.

We are not so different from the people of Thomas’ time.  We, too,want to know that God sees and hears us, that God acts in our world, that there is a divine order to our world, that God watches over and protects us, that God speaks to us, that in our world the forces for good are greater than are the forces for evil, that we can interact with the divine, and that even now we can apprehend the things of heaven.  

Though other traditions have angels or angel-like figures, what is specifically Christian about our tradition is that the angels all serve, all point to, all celebrate Jesus.  Revelation tells us that in heaven thousands of angels gather around Jesus and sing him praise (Rev 5:11).  Jesus is the center of the angels’ attention; he is the locus of divine glory.  

The good news for us is that it is not merely the angels but Jesus who connects heaven and earth.  As Jesus said to Nathaniel in tonight’s Gospel lesson :  

Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?  You will see greater things than these… Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

Unlike the angels, Jesus is corporeal; unlike the angels, Jesus didn’t merely assume but became a body; unlike the angels, Jesus really is alive.  While angels may stand in the presence of God and serve God’s purposes, because of the Incarnation it is through Jesus that we human beings have a known, direct and corporeal experience of God seeing and hearing us, of God speaking to us, of God acting in human lives.  Though important in many ways, perhaps the most important role the angels play is to point to Jesus as the one who, being fully divine but also fully human, can meet our hearts’ desire.

Tonight’s Gospel lesson points to resurrection as our hearts’ desire. In John, Nathanael does indeed see “greater things than these.”  After tonight’s lesson from chapter 1, the next time Nathanael appears in John is chapter 21 where he is one of the seven who witness the risen Christ by the Sea of Tiberias.  And isn’t this ultimately what we hope for and desire:  not merely to stand in God’s presence and to do God’s will and to sing God’s praise as spiritual beings, but rather to center our lives upon him and to do God’s will and to sing God’s praise as we are human beings? And don’t we wish, not merely with our intellect and will, but also with our bodies, to share in Jesus’ resurrection?  Resurrection in the body – to live for God’s glory, now, as we are yet in the body – suggests John, is our hearts’ desire.

Thomas says that angels,along with humans, are members of the Mystical Body of Christ; as such, the angels are present at every celebration of the Eucharist.  Though the angels surround us at each Eucharist, it is not the angels but only we humans who take the bread and wine.  The angels already in a way have done their job by bringing us safely here.  And then they step back as we humans do only what we can do – we who are members not of the angelic order but of the human order – [the angels step back as we humans]feed on Christ’s body and blood and proclaim and sing his praise with human voices, and go forth with human bodies, and in our human lives follow Jesus as his disciples in our human world.  

Though the order of angels plays a key role in God’s creation, John’s Gospel suggests that for us humans Jesus is the locus of divine glory.  Jesus is the place where heaven and earth meet. Jesus is the one about whom we dream, the place where we can set up a pillar and declare praise, the one to whom we vow to return.  I thank God for the angels, who help and defend us here on earth.  Yet it is Jesus who will show us “greater things than these;” who will show us that we who are embodied share in his resurrection, and that we, too, with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, are invited to take our place around the throne and to find our lives’ ultimate purpose now, while we are in the flesh, in doing his will and singing his praise.