Seven Characteristics of OA Members

In the beginning the angels were separated into faithful and unfaithful angels (demons). Therefore, fidelity is the first mark of the holy angels. Members of the Work of the Holy Angels also strive to be firmly rooted in fidelity to God (the Blessed Mother, the angels and saints) and to Holy Church.

In contrast to the fallen angels who said “I will not serve;” the holy angels through their profound humility remained faithful under trial in the service of God. In order to work with the holy angels, we should also be willing to serve God in a joyful spirit of humility, for “God loves a cheerful giver.”

The holy angels are “mighty in strength and attentive, obedient to every command” (Ps 103). We grow in union with God by willingly subjecting ourselves in the grace of the Holy Spirit to God, the Church and all legitimate authority to the glory of God.

“The Seraphim are called ‘burning ones’, yet all the [choirs of angels] burn in the same way with love for their Creator” (St. Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels 34, 14). Love for God and neighbor should be at the center of all our thoughts, words and actions as the heart is the center of our being.

The angels continually “behold the face of God” (Mt 18:10). Hence, though they have exterior ministries, they are “never absent interiorly through contemplation” (St. Gregory, ibid., 13). In the same way, through holy silence we strive to remain always interiorly recollected and to empty ourselves of vain desires in order to be able to hear and heed the voice of God.

As God’s holy ministers, the angels do all things with measure and order. Members of the OA also strive for order and measure in both their exterior and interior life, ordering the passions and avoiding sensuality.

The angels serve Mary as their Queen and Lady. Mary is given to the Church as Mother and model (Lumen Gentium, nn. 63-65). Every member of the Work of the Holy Angels should be totally Marian. For Mary in her “fiat” is the model of silent listening and obedience to the word of God which came to her through the angel. We strive to imitate her, therefore, in her silence, listening, obedience, poverty (humility), purity and fidelity in the following of Christ, even beneath the Cross (see Basic Dispositions for Collaborating with the Holy Angels).