What Angels Expect of Us

We often look to the Holy Angels for light and strength, for protection against the evil spirits, for help in the large and small trials of daily life. And rightly so. But in the Work of the Holy Angels, this is only a small part of what it means to be devoted to the Angels. People generally ask, “What can the Angel do for me?” But in the Work of the Holy Angels, we should also – and more importantly ask – what does the Holy Angel expect of me, what does he want of me? What can I do for the Angel?

The Lord established the Work of the Holy Angels to renew and deepen the covenant of cooperation between Angels and men, between both kinds of free persons made in the image of God, to work together as one, with Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and with each other, to God’s glory, the salvation of souls and the repatriation of all creation back to God. They – Angels and men – do all this by God’s grace, in union with and out of love for God, but also in union with and in a bond of love with one another. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read, “Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of Angels and men united in God” (CCC 336). This union in God is ordered to a common mission, as Mother Gabriele Bitterlich adds: “Both are to serve Him as one to His glory, according to His will and guided by His love. They are to participate equally in the great task of leading the whole of creation home” (Advent letter 1964, Task and Sacrifice). This union of love and cooperation is strengthened and intensified by the Church-approved consecrations to the Holy Angels in the Work. Thus, the essential nature of the Work is the communion, the collaboration of Angel and men in the love and service of God and the work of Redemption, for the building up and consolidation of the Kingdom of God on earth, the Holy Church.

To this end, God first makes the Angel known to us. “He has drawn His Angels near to us by giving us the grace of knowing … their nature as leaders, their discipleship in the service of Christ the King, their power over the rebellious forces of hell” (M. Gabriele, ibid.). This knowledge, this peering into the beautiful world of the heavenly hierarchies, as wonderful as it may be, is not an end in itself. Rather, it serves the specific goal of helping man to become ever more God-like through the help of the Angels, namely, by imitating their reverence, fidelity, zeal and service, and so coming to understand the goals and intent of the Angels, so that the soul may work and fight ever more efficaciously with the Angel.

The Angels are holy citizens of heaven, already confirmed in grace in the light of glory. We, on the other hand, remain poor sinners, stumbling our way along the path to God in the obscurity of faith.

With their whole beings the Angels are servants and messengers of God. Because they ‘always behold the face of My Father who is in Heaven’ (Mt 18:10), they are the ‘mighty ones who do His word, hearkening to the voice of His word’ (Ps 103:20) …surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness. (CCC 329-330)

How can we poor sinners work together with them? We need to remember that Christ died for us. Accordingly, every time we fall, we can – through sincere tears of contrition and compunction of heart (and also by good, regular confession for both venial and grave matters!) – be restored to grace and the path of virtue.

We often behave like the Prodigal Son of the Gospel and squander the riches [that is, the graces] of God, while the faithful Angel works restlessly for his Lord and God. But our repentance drives us again and again into the arms of God, the One Creator Father of Angel and man; and there is more joy among the Angels in Heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance. And here, in the recognition of our misery, our task begins: to work with the Angel. (Mother Gabriele, Task and Sacrifice)

Therefore, we must not despair of this great task set before us, but rather realize that the first goal of the Angels in their Work relates to us. They seek to train us, to educate and discipline us, to admonish and guide us, so that we may become more and more like them in their faithful, unconditional worship and service of God, and thus also efficacious instruments together with them in the redemptive work of Christ.

Thus, the first goal of the Angels is to lead men to a very deep union of love with Jesus, that like them, we allow Him to live and work in and through us (cf. Gal 2:20). When we go to them in the sincere and humble recognition of our weakness, in the acknowledgment of our need for God’s grace and with confidence in their help, we open ourselves in this way ever more for their influence.

The Angel is our older, wiser brother, who sees further and obeys more quickly than we do. We should learn from him: How he adores, with what reverence! [Adoration.] How steadfastly he looks at his Lord – like a faithful servant! [Contemplation.] The will of God has become his will. [Mission.] The light of God can pass through him unhindered, while our sins make us interiorly dark; how diligently we should therefore strive for a pure heart! How easily the Angel can separate the essential from the non-essential, while we allow ourselves to be fragmented and torn apart, and by trivial things rendered incapable of making decisions. How necessary it is for us to “stand above things”; this means the same as, SOLI DEO [to live and work for GOD ALONE]! To what an extent the Angel can be silent and yet speak in silence! What reverence he has for every priest, for every word of God!

This is a difficult task, if we are to do all this like the Angel. It will cost us all kinds of sacrifices. But a courageous and joyfully made sacrifice is always a proof of genuine love. If one cannot make any sacrifice, then the furnace [of love] in the chamber of his soul has gone out. But we want to burn for our Lord and GOD! We want to be there for all His wishes and plans, we want to burn for the intentions of the Holy Church! (Task and Sacrifice)

Thus, the Angel first teaches man the Adoration and Contemplation of God, rousing him to a burning love for God. He helps him to discern the essential from the unessential, to become simple and uncomplicated, open for God’s will. To lead man along this path, the Angel first fills man with light and consolation to bring him to an initial zeal and union of love with God and in order to prepare for the purifications to follow.

Through the Angels, these wonderful, glorious creatures, the soul “sees” God [with an intensified light of faith], God draws near to him; He comes ever nearer. It is as if God were to spread out His mantel full of majesty and raging fire, and the soul sees the ineffably radiant Body of the Lord; we walk, we are drawn towards Him, the Lord enters into us and we into Him, we sink into Him. (M. Gabriele, The Intent of the Angels)

This initial union can take place in a moment of deeper conversion or prayer, after a good confession, when we make certain promises or consecrations to God, or even daily in Holy Communion. We experience a particularly strong effusion of grace, and are inflamed for God!

And yet, this is but the beginning of our union with God, because we still work with our senses and feel [that is, the consolations of God are still very sensual and in need of purification]. But already, we do not want to be outside of God anymore, and we should not be either, for otherwise, we will no longer be able to bear the following [purifications] correctly. (ibid.)

Thus the Angel, as a good spiritual guide, begins to lead the soul through light and consolations; but inexorably, at the Lord’s hand and by His will, he must lead him to the Cross.

The Passio Domini

At the core and center of the Work of the Holy Angels, at its very essence, is always the Passio Domini, the weekly remembrance of the redemptive suffering of Jesus at the Last Supper, in His Agony and His death on the Cross. Here Angel and man become one with the Heart of Jesus, they contemplate and learn from His love, and from here they go out to serve God’s plan of salvation. In the Passio Domini, both Angel and man are “ever learners”; they contemplate the obedience of Jesus in His Agony (“Father, not Mine, but Your will be done!”) and the merciful love of God manifested by Christ’s total gift of Self of on the Cross. Here they can learn ever more from the thirsting Heart of Jesus opened by a lance for sinners, who gives Himself wholly every day anew in the Most Holy Eucharist. And Jesus wants to nail us with Himself to the Cross of the world’s sin (cf. Gal 2:19).

Through the Lord we see the distress of the times, the destruction of our times, and the Lord begins the way of the Cross with us. Without this previous union [of love and longing – see above], we would neither correctly understand nor correctly walk the way of the Cross which follows it, which in practice embraces the whole religious, priestly, marital and professional life. Only in God can we understand it and obey Him absolutely – just as a drop of blood is bound to the whole bloodstream. This is what it means to be a member of the Corpus Christi Mysticum. (The Intent of the Angels)

Thus, the weekly Passio Domini is not merely a commemoration of the Passion and Death of Jesus. Both man and Angel are to learn from it, to be transformed by it, to live it.

How the Angel lives the Passio Domini

Only in union with Christ and His love garnered from the Passio Domini can Angel and man set out to cooperate in the work of Redemption, each in his own way. “The Lord leads the Angel beneath the Cross, so that through men he can comprehend from within the greatness of the work of Redemption, the expiation made by Jesus Christ, the “I thirst” (Jn 19:28)” (Lent 1966, Man and Angel in the Work). Thus, seeing Jesus, the Angel learns of God’s thirst for souls, of the extent of His merciful, forgiving love for man – “to the end” (Jn 13:1). The Angel must learn this mercy and zeal for souls from His Lord, for by nature, the Angel sees and acts with pure truth and justice, zealous for the honor of God, and ready to strike any creature who offends that honor. But seeing that Christ died for our sins, how can the Angel not see sinful man, as the object of such divine love and mercy, with different eyes?

Further, by accompanying his protégé under the weight of the Cross, the Angel sees how men are transformed by bearing their own crosses with resignation and fidelity. He sees much more clearly the reality of a soul sanctified and transformed by grace, going from a dark slave of passion and of the devil to a bright, clear vessel of God and a ready instrument in His hands. And this transformation comes through the Cross: “… but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:24). Thus the Angel learns from the Passio how he is to accompany man, how he is to support, enlighten and guide him in all the trials of life, so that his protégé may successfully pass through the dark nights of the soul, spiritually dying to himself, and reach the greatest possible union with God.

The soul accompanying Christ in His Passion

With the help of the light from his Angel, man too learns from the Passio Domini the great desires and plans of God for the salvation of souls and the repatriation of all creation. He learns to thirst with Christ with great longing for souls, for the needs of the Holy Church. For “through the Angel’s gift of enlightenment, the Lord allows man to comprehend the great connections in the whole of creation, which have their center in the Passion of Christ, the wonderful connections between all the words of God. The goal lies in the Lord’s desire: ‘Father, I will that they may all be one’ (cf. Jn 17:21-23)” (Man and Angel in the Work). And in seeing the goal set before him, man braces himself to set to work at the hand of the Angel, first of all on himself, that is above all, to learn to accept the Cross and every trial with a willing yes.

First, the internalization of our soul must take place, its purification and cleansing, so that the strength of God can dwell therein. There must be a strong, determined striving for the simple essence of God [that is, the simplicity of a child, who reflects God’s goodness by his very being], for the absolute fulfillment of the will of God, for the Omnia Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (All to the greater glory of God!) and for the love of God. (Intent of the Angels)

In this zeal for God, in our longing to help in the work of saving souls, helping priests and engaging in the battle for the Kingdom, then, we must first strive for detachment from everything dear to us, and most especially from our own ego, so that we may live only for God and place no obstacles to His plans for us in the economy of salvation. We can and must make efforts to curb our self-seeking and self-will [active purification], but more importantly, God Himself will lead us through the passive purifications, so that we become ever more docile to His working in us, until like St. Paul, we can say, “With Christ I have been nailed to the Cross, and I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:19-20). The Angel helps us to understand and accept what God is doing in our soul, he encourages and enlightens us on our way, that we learn in every sacrifice to say, “Yes, Lord, (oh how it hurts!), but yes, for love of You, my God and my All!”

We must thus be willing to be beaten and pushed without complaint. We must be willing to leave all for love of God and not to cling to what is dear to us. We must even be willing to be suspected, slandered, deceived and passed over for the sake of our way, and still along with this, to muster up the fidelity and the joy to say yes. We must be able to wait without becoming impatient or falling asleep. Interiorly, we are far from being finished and we can draw out ever more from ourselves. Thus, we come ever nearer to the goal which the Angels have placed for us and which is also the core of their intent in their Work: The union with God, being one with God! There the Angels want to lead us. For only God in us can give us the strength for victory, even over atomic mushrooms of the demons above us and the jaws of hell beneath us. And only then, when God can remain in us, can we stand in the ranks of the Angels as those capable of fighting. (Intent of the Angels)

Thus, in the Passio Domini, we accompany the Lord every week in His Passion and death. We go with Him, but He also goes with us. He accompanies us in our spiritual dying to self and this world, and one day, in our physical death and departure for eternal life. [The Angels do not use the term death, but transformation. For we do not cease to exist, but pass to our definitive and eternal state.] In this sense, our trial is much easier than the trial of the Angels.

The Lord takes us into Himself and with Himself until our death, whether it be our earthly death, or our spiritual dying with Him in the Passio Domini, our “un-coming to be”. We must somehow suffer everything with Him: the anguish of the Mount of Olives, the betrayal, being left alone in our life, scorn and mockery and being judged by our neighbor, carrying the Cross of sickness and being an outcast, of worries, age and distress. Here many turn away. They go with the Lord only as far as Tabor and very few as far as the Mount of Olives. This spiritual dying eludes external notice. It is a night of the senses, which can last hours or years, but then heaven suddenly opens and the soul stands before the Triune God! (ibid.)

If we die with Christ, we shall also rise with Him! (cf. Rom 6:5,8)

And this is one of the first objectives of the Angels in their Work, to lead us to this deeper union with God through the emptying of self in the following of Christ, who “emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, and… [having] humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a Cross” (Phil 2:7-8). But like Christ, with every spiritual dying we will also experience the Resurrection and a great spiritual renewal!

Afterwards, the soul cannot communicate anything, there are no words which could be coined for it. But now she has reached the greatest [spiritual] force of influence, above all for the spiritual growth of the Church, which is nourished more by such forces than by outward plans and scientific successes. With this, the intent of the Angels is achieved and with such souls, the Holy Church is made capable of fighting, strong and victorious. (Intent of the Angels)

Here Angel and man are to become one with God and from here they are to penetrate the Holy Church with the fiery zeal of the Good News, from here to take up the fight against everything associated with the evil spirits. (Man and Angel in the Work)

Again and again we will go through this spiritual dying and rising again, through all the spiritual nights of sense, soul and spirit, leading to an ever deeper union with God. In this way becoming ever more like the Holy Angels and ever better “fellow workers” with them.

The Consecrations

Mother Gabriele summarizes the Work in the following way:

The Work consists then: In a clear knowledge of what the Angel is and what he does and what he wills; but also what the devil is, what he does and what he wills. In a conscious and voluntary bond of man with the holy Angels for the sake of a joint, unified force of impact. In a joint engagement of Angel and man in the coming battles and raging assaults of the evil one. In leading man to a complete surrender to God, to Mary, and to a total commitment to expiation for the salvation of souls. This is the essence of the Work of the Angels. (On the Nature and Purpose of the Work)

Thus at the very center of the Work as a most efficacious means of uniting man more firmly to God, Mary and the Angel are the consecrations proper to the Work, approved by and received in the name of the Church.

This bond – the consecration to the Angels – stands at the center of the “Work of the Angels”. In accordance with God’s will, it binds Angel and man indissolubly together. From then on, the soul prays together with the Angels, sacrifices with them, fights with them, forms with them the servants and followers of Mary, the Tabernacle guard.

Then the Angel instructs the soul ever more forcefully, as to how one should walk on the little way of love, the little way of expiation, the way of everyday life. He tears open for him ever more the greatness and majesty of God and leads him to reverence, to the fear of the Lord… so that the soul finally becomes clear about his position before God and his duty and responsibility before God. The Angel becomes ever more the helper and signpost, a “fellow servant” (Rev 19:10).

…According to God’s will, [the Work] should not aim at a particular devotion in the Holy Church, but to bring about in the whole Church a new holy fire, new courage, new vigor, new love. The attacks of the evil one are shifting more and more to the realm of the spiritual and are becoming ever more unmasked; thus, the help of the Angels must also be incorporated more and more in the battle. And for this reason, the consecrations are at the center of the Work of the Angels as man’s bond to God and Mary and to the Angels. (ibid.)

Thus, through the consecrations, the Angels can influence us more efficaciously and lead us more surely through the stages of the spiritual life on the way to perfect charity, that we together with them can engage in the battle for the Kingdom of God and aid the Church in all her struggles.

Expiation for Priests

At the core of the Work of the Holy Angels is always expiation for priests. While Mary was given into the care of St. John beneath the Cross, it was first and primarily St. John who was given into the care of Mary, the priest into the care of Mary and the Church. Like Mary was sheltered in the home of John, we as “Church” and individual members of it, in an analogous way benefit from the selfless ministry of priests: in the Sacraments, in the proclamation of the word of God, in the forgiveness of sins, most especially in the ministry of the Holy Eucharist, our food and sustenance, light and strength on our path to God. But as Mary was the spiritual support for John and all the Apostles, so also we should become a support and help for our priests: above all through prayer and sacrifice, and in a special way, for those who have stumbled along the way, through expiation.

This contribution is what the Angels expect of us. As they have been Guardian Angels to us, bringing us light and strength along our path, so they await that we become Guardian Angels for those around us, a beacon of light and a tower of strength through firm faith, unwavering hope and active charity; through intercession, sacrifice and total surrender to God, to His glory and for the sanctification of souls, especially priests. Above all, we will bear fruit through our union with Christ, to which the Angels firmly lead us. “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in him” (Jn 6:56). “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).

Sr. Maria Basilea