I wonder how many adults really believe in guardian angels. It is now, and has been since the beginning of the Church, one of our beliefs. Today’s Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life”(#203).  The scriptures have numerous accounts of angels. In Psalm 91: 11-12 we hear “For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” Again in Exodus 23:20 we read “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.” The New Testament continues in Matthew 18:10 “Beware that you don’t look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my Heavenly Father.” In Hebrews 1:14 we hear “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”. Hebrews 13:2 adds “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Besides scripture and Church teachings many of the Saints talk about angels. They are very real and I have personal knowledge of that from many events that occurred in my life. I would like to share with you one of those events.
In the late 1970’s my wife and I received an invitation from our good Friends Tom and Lyn Scheuring (who now run LAMP Ministries in NYC) to come in to the Grace Estate in Manhasset to see Leo Joseph Cardinal Suenens. He was going to be staying at the Estate for a few days and was giving talks and celebrating mass. Since Cardinal Suenens was one of the most influential leaders of the Vatican Council, and also involved in the Charismatic Renewal, we knew that we just “had” to go. Tom and Lyn said that we could bring another couple with us. We invited friends of ours, Ed and Maria Marini to go. We all packed in to my Ford Camper Van and headed from Patchogue to Manhasset using the Long Island Expressway. My Ford Van had a huge front window that, combined with being raised fairly high above the road, gives the driver and passengers an excellent view of the road in front of us.
We were driving in the far right lane at about 60mph when all of a sudden a sports car comes on to the entrance ramp at a very high rate of speed. The ramp was curved as it came on to the expressway and the sports car was going so fast that it lost control and was headed straight at us. We all saw it happening and it seemed that a serious crash was impossible to avoid. All of a sudden, that sports car that was coming directly at us from the right was lifted up in the air high enough to pass over the small front hood of the van right in front of our front window. It looked as if we had collided but there was no collision. The sports car was heading directly across the flow of traffic and landed to our left in the middle and far left hand lanes. Even though there was considerable traffic that day, it did not hit any car and landed in the median of the road. All of us in the car saw what happened but couldn’t believe that it happened. There was no way that sports car could have become so highly airborne on its own. I later examined that ramp and saw nothing that could have lifted that car up. I really believe that the four guardian angels of the people in my car, as well as the two guardian angels of the people in the sports car lifted the sports car high enough so that we didn’t collide. All four of us in my van agreed. I wonder what the people in the sports car thought. I know that our guardian angels were at work there.
We have told that story to people several times and there is always a sense that the people listening don’t quite believe it or that we have exaggerated. They were not there and I know that you as a reader probably think the same thing. I was there and I know that God’s intervention, probably using guardian angels, is what kept us alive that day. God is so good.
“Beside each believer stands an Angel as protector and shepherd, leading him to life.” – St. Basil the Great
Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this day (or night) be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen. d