Sister Alicia Torres, a Chicago-based Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist and executive team member for the National Eucharistic Revival, sees the poll results as an opportunity to engage Catholics.
“If there’s an openness to a relationship with one’s guardian angel, then that in and of itself is an opportunity and an entry point where we might re-propose the relationship with Christ, and particularly his presence in the Eucharist,” she said.
Torres told CNA that she finds it “particularly hopeful” that the majority of Catholic respondents have “an awareness and acceptance of the supernatural.”
“I would be interested in that one-on-one conversation to get a better sense of what is the awareness of the supernatural for your average Catholic,” she added.
Torres questioned whether some of the Catholics surveyed have an active relationship with their guardian angel. Some of the older Catholics respondents may have been raised with the centuries-old prayer to their guardian angel, she said.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms the reality of angels, Torres noted, and it says that the angels are present during the eucharistic liturgy.
Though Catholics and other Christians don’t always believe in the doctrines of the Catholic Church, there is a “general interest” in angels, Seitz told CNA. Whether those who profess belief in angels mean the same thing that Catholicism does is a separate question.
“Our angels, as many Church Fathers say, are prostrating before our Lord, who becomes present on the altar,” Seitz said. Although so many people speak about angels, he suggested, “it’s more difficult to believe in the Eucharist than to believe in angels.”
The world and the Church are “a little bit lost,” he said, because “we have lost a true, living contact with the holy angels.” Seitz said Catholic teaching on angels is summarized in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but sometimes this is glossed over. Angels are rarely subjects of homilies.
“The angels are pure spirits. They are very powerful, with intellect and free will,” the priest explained. “They are personal beings. They are also created in the image and likeness of God. In the hierarchy of being, they are the highest of creatures, by nature, created by God.”
By divine plan, the angels are in charge of the government of the entire universe, from planets to plants, to rocks, to people, he said. It is in this context that individual people have a guardian angel.
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“Every human being is destined to see God face to face,” Seitz said. “God, in his wisdom, assigned to each human a personal guardian angel as a companion, as a guide, leading us through life,” the priest said. “It is God’s plan for how to bring creation back to himself. The angels play a really big role in that.”
The angel at Fatima
Seitz cited the angelic and Marian apparitions at Fatima, Portugal, in the early 20th century, witnessed by three shepherd children who have since been canonized. The Catholic Church has taught that nothing about this apparition is inconsistent with the faith.
The Fatima apparitions include one of the few modern accounts of an angel encouraging devotion to the Eucharist.
In the fall of 1916, the children said, an angel made its third appearance. The children said an angelic visitor suspended the host and the chalice in the air, then bowed in adoration. The children imitated the angel, bowing their foreheads to the ground.
They learned from the angel a prayer of eucharistic adoration and reparation that seeks the conversion of sinners. The angel gave the Blessed Sacrament to one girl, St. Lucia, and the Precious Blood to the two other children, Sts. Francisco and Jacinta.