There is something wonderful and reassuring about angels. Our Scriptures, our services, and our prayers remind us that the world is filled with more glory than we ordinarily perceive. We have guardian angels who accompany us and intercede for us. We join the angels in worship. We receive their protection without necessarily recognizing how often they have helped us. For those whose imaginations have been nourished by fairy tales and stories of adventure, discovering this can be especially powerful. The world God has made is more beautiful, more mysterious, and more glorious than anything we have imagined. And we are part of it.
Sometimes our wonder becomes a longing for extraordinary experiences. We want to see our guardian angel or have our eyes opened to the spiritual world. Yet we may overlook the person God has already placed before us. Learning to receive that person with reverence would itself be a profound transformation of our sight.
Receiving the Person Before Us
The feast of Saint Michael and all the heavenly hosts invites us to consider where the angels’ glory comes from. They reflect the glory of God, whom they continually praise. Their beauty draws our attention toward Him. Hebrews offers counsel that connects this heavenly wonder with ordinary hospitality: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2). We might hear that and wonder which stranger could turn out to be an angel. But the words should also make us more attentive to every stranger. We do not know the full significance of the person we are receiving.
Christ takes us further: “As you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). We hear those words so often that we can forget how astonishing they are. Christ directs our attention toward the hungry, the stranger, the sick, and the imprisoned. He teaches us to receive them with a seriousness and reverence we might otherwise reserve for a heavenly visitor.
Saint Paul asks, “Do you not know that we shall judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:3). Here we glimpse the extraordinary calling of the saints to share in Christ’s reign, to join Him in His divine council. The person beside us is made in the image of God and called to communion with Him. The people we live with, work with, and pass in the store are people God desires to bring into the fellowship of His saints. Their calling should fill us with awe and shape the way we approach them.
When Judgment Clouds Our Sight
That calling may be easier to recognize in someone we already admire. It becomes more difficult when the person is unpleasant, angry, or plainly doing something wrong. We hear someone speak cruelly and rightly recognize the cruelty. But then something else happens: we imagine that we understand the person who said it. We pass judgment on his soul and begin collecting reasons to write him off. We know an action. We assume we know a heart.
There is some pride for us to confess there, and some humility for us to acquire. We have forgotten how much remains hidden from us. We have also forgotten how patiently God has worked with our own brokenness. Our reverence begins with what God has given this person and what He desires for him; it does not depend on how much goodness we can presently recognize. As we become practiced at noticing faults, it becomes harder to perceive anything else. We can still explain what is wrong with someone, but we struggle to imagine what God might yet bring to life in him.
Sheltering the Ember
Think of trying to start a fire when everything is cold and wet. Some people enjoy putting themselves in these circumstances. They take vacations to do it. I did it when the Army made me. Under those conditions, a fire becomes a very important thing. Even before there is hot coffee or anything dry, the fire itself lifts your spirits. There is warmth, light, and the promise that things can get better. But everything is damp. Nothing wants to catch. You work and work, and finally you get a little ember.
When you finally coax an ember from damp kindling, you shelter it from the wind, feed it carefully, and attend to anything that might extinguish it. Someone watching might find the effort pitiful and suggest a lighter or a better method. But this is the ember you have. You know what it can become, and you are grateful for it. You will do everything you can to preserve it and help it grow.
We need something of that attention when we encounter one another. And we need others to offer that attention to us. Each of us has needed someone to shelter a little hope, notice a goodness we could no longer see in ourselves, or remain close when we were difficult to love.
There may be a great deal wrong. Someone’s life may be obscured by anger, addiction, despair, or habits that have caused real harm. We should take those things seriously. But we must also remember that the person is still alive, still made in God’s image, still someone for whom Christ came. We know from our own lives how much a little patience and kindness can matter. We approach this person with gratitude for the care we have received, hopeful that God will work through our encounter for the healing of us both.
Anyone who has kept watch beside a sick child knows something of this attention. Love notices the smallest signs, stays close, and seeks to give whatever help is needed. We can bring some of that patience and tenderness to our neighbors, even those whom we find difficult to love.
The Attention Love Requires
Our first instinct may be to explain everything that needs to change. We can see the wet wood and all the smoke. We have opinions about how the fire ought to be built. There may be a time for correction. There may be practical help we are responsible for giving. But we need to begin by attending to the person, asking what is being entrusted to us in this encounter and what would help sustain life. The ember needs to be protected, nurtured, and strengthened.
Sometimes that means listening long enough to hear what someone is trying to say. Sometimes it means offering help without humiliating the person who needs it. Sometimes it means remaining patient when gratitude is slow to come. Sometimes it means stepping back and praying, recognizing that our presence may be doing more harm than good. We can entrust someone to God’s care and to the help others can offer.
We cannot make that ember grow by force of will. We offer the attention, patience, and help entrusted to us, and ask God to work through them. His love is already at work in this person, often in ways we cannot see. We are learning to participate in that love. We do these things because we have received mercy ourselves. Christ has seen us in our darkness and come to bring us light. He and the ministering angels who surround us have patiently nurtured the flame of life within us. As we receive His love, we become able to share it.
Enough Light to Begin
This is part of what it means to live in a sacramental world. God’s grace is at work through the relationships and actions of those who serve Him. An encounter that seems ordinary to us can become an occasion for healing, for warmth, for light. We can become so interested in understanding that world that we postpone living in it. We imagine that we need to master more theology or acquire some extraordinary spiritual gift before we can help spread the flame God has lit within us.
Yet through our union with Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit in chrismation, we have already been called into the royal priesthood. We have been given a share in this work of prayer, service, and communion. We can recognize a neighbor, offer attention, pray, share what we have, and faithfully serve the person before us. The awesome world we long to enter is already around us, and God has given us a place and a calling within it.
We give thanks for Michael and Gabriel and all the ranks of angels, for our guardian angels, and for the saints who pray for us. Let that gratitude deepen our attention to the people beside us. The person before us has depths we cannot judge and a calling we cannot yet fully see. We can offer the patience we have needed, receive the kindness we still need, and trust God to work through both. We have already been given enough light to begin.