82: The angels are alongside us

Episode 82 Special Christmas episode: a conversation and Christmas carols. Anne and Mark share their thoughts and experiences of angels. Mark reminds us that angels are both with us and in the presence of God, ‘They’re here and they’re there at the same time.’ Seeing an image carved on a tomb years ago taught Anne to think of angels, not ‘like a fairy with pretty wings,’ but as ‘fierce’ and ‘protective.’ 

Thanks to Elizabeth, of Episode 21, for sharing her beautiful Christmas carol-singing.

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Transcript

You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro.  My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways we're living our faith today.  Pope Leo, quoting St Augustine, reminds us, Let us live well and the times will be good.  We are the times.  I hope you feel encouraged and affirmed and sometimes challenged as I am in these conversations.  Join our podcast community, get news and background information about the conversations and share your thoughts if you want to. You can get the newsletter and each episode straight to your inbox by going to allkindsofcatholic.substack.com and clicking on subscribe. It's free. That web address is in the episode notes too and I'd love you to draw closer to our community. Thank you.

I'm so glad you've tuned in listeners. There's a clue to what today's conversation is about in the words of this carol coming up. You may remember Elizabeth, our guest back in Episode 21. Elizabeth has kindly provided the carols for today's special Christmas episode.

The First Nowell Christmas Carol.

Welcome listeners to this special Christmas episode of the podcast.  I'm delighted to be joined by Mark and Anne. And we're going to talk about angels today. I was thinking that angels feature in the stories around Christmas, in the readings and in our prayers. In prayers at every Sunday Mass, Mark reminded me. Mark and Anne both have something to talk about regarding their experiences around angels and harnessing angels in their prayer life too. Before we get on to that though, welcome Mark and Anne. 

Hello. Hello.

I wonder if you might - to help listeners get a flavour of who you are and where your faith sits - tell us about what Mass you might be going to this Christmas. Are you someone who goes to the early Christmas Eve, Midnight Mass, Christmas Day?  Anne, what about you? Which Mass will you be going to for Christmas? 

It's the early Mass. We go particularly because my daughter leads the music there. They have a big band there and drums and whatever. So it's normally very, very packed.

Okay, and is that something that you look forward to as Christmas draws near that you know you're going to be at this Mass that's going to be packed and full of good music? 

It's very much a family feel. Obviously it's important going to receive communion, to go to Mass anyway, but it's just got an awful lot of joy. There's carols before Mass and everybody joins in and the sign of peace goes on for ages because everybody's giving each other a hug. It's just a very much a lovely time and then at the end the children look forward because there's people standing at the back handing out sweets.  So it's very much a family feeling.  

What about you Mark, what's your favourite Christmas Mass to be going to? 

Traditionally I would have gone to the late Mass, the Christmas Eve Mass that used to be at midnight. But this year we have a couple of our granddaughters staying with us who are aged seven and nine.  So we're going to go to the kids Mass which is at five o'clock on Christmas Eve, that's quite a fun Mass. Father manages to combine Christmas-y Santa Claus-y stuff with saying Mass.  Father disappears halfway through Mass and some strangely dressed Santa  appears halfway through and engages with the children during the homily time. 

That's pretty radical. 

Yeah, it's all a bit riotous really.  And then it gets back to Mass.  The kids really like it. And one of my granddaughters - they're not regular Mass-goers but they were here last week, and she went out to the children's liturgy and did the summary at the end of the liturgy for the rest of the parish. She managed to volunteer to do one of the readings, so I'm very pleased I'll see my granddaughter doing one of the readings as well at that Mass which would be nice for her, just to bring her into the community of the parish, her to meet lots of the other kids as well. 

Exactly. 

We also have a nativity that the children come out and get dressed up and then they do the nativity. And also a Christingle last year. All the children came out, somebody did the story of the Christingle and they put all the things on and  everybody was just like, holding their breath, is the candles going to burn anybody? But they all did it, no problem, with parents. 

Lovely. Let us think then about angels at Christmas. So for me, I think of angels as messengers of God, bringing good news, supernatural beings in the sense of outside of the concrete world that we are so familiar with. I wonder what you're thinking when you're harnessing angels in your prayer, Anne, which I know you were telling me you do do and have had prayers answered in this way? So tell us a bit about that. 

Well, I would say that the particular things that I'm going to share, just the experiences, helped me really focus on saying, Well, I do need to really, it's really important for me to really ask for the help constantly of my guardian angel on a regular basis and to actually believe that my guardian angel is around. So I think the incidents I'm going to say made me really believe that rather than just - it went to my heart rather than to my head. When I've looked at the research, Padre Pio, Sister Faustina of Divine Mercy, a lot of the saints had relationships with their guardian angels, asking for wisdom and protection. I think it's very much something that is within the Church, particularly maybe in the past, but I think it's important for today. And also being led, and I've read that other people have done that, I think saints did that. Not that I'm saying that I'm a saint. That when there's a problem in a situation with other people I know, rather than, because it's a delicate thing and not always necessarily thinking you can say anything, what do I say or what don't I say? I've actually prayed and asked the person's guardian angel to talk, this sounds strange, but talk to the other person's guardian angel to communicate, to help bring some kind of wisdom and reconciliation. It's really happened. It really helps rather than me wading in and doing things that probably I shouldn't be doing. 

That is really interesting, Anne. I wouldn't have thought of doing that. Thank you. And Mark, do you call on angels in your prayer? 

Not so much. I just have a kind of acquaintance with them, a friendship with them. I think a lot of people forget about them when they're about 13. Stop thinking about your guardian angel, who your mum and dad have probably spoken to you about when you're little. But it's not just  for children. Your guardian angel is a ministering angel who stands in the presence of God. When I was ill, I had this manifestation - I'll call it that because it's such a vague term - of my guardian angel by way of reassurance. I do pray to my own, through my own guardian angel, not to him or her, but through the angel. The angel has a name. Last year for about 12 months I had the names of the guardians of people who I know come to me, sometimes uninvited the name would come, sometimes they would ask me. So I'd just bring it up in my prayer and sometimes the name would come, sometimes it wouldn't. I'm aware of the angelic reality, the presence of angels in our lives, the way they sometimes manifest. I don’t see angels, but I know a couple of people who do see angels either in church or at home in different places. And so the reality of the angelic realm has become more real to me over recent years.  

Thank you Mark. I think that's really interesting. I think for some listeners that might be quite challenging and for other listeners, they'll be thinking, Thank goodness, someone's saying something that I'm on board with. And I think for me, I've become more able to think about the angelic realm more recently, in some ways, a bit like I think you were saying, Anne, it was a bit woolly before, was kind of there, but I've begun to recognise the reality of it. And I reminded myself, something made me think about: I believe in God. So, you know, I believe in things that are supernatural. The angels too, who are in the Bible, who are in Mass, in the lives of saints, as you say, and that people have had experiences that really speak to them and so have I. A bit like you mentioned there, manifestation being a useful word, it's so hard to put language around some of these very deep experiences of the supernatural slightly breaking into our lives. And I think angels can be a really helpful way of thinking about that. Mark, you mentioned this manifestation when you were ill. I wonder if you might get into the nitty gritty now. Would you tell us a little bit more about what that was like?

Sure. So in 2020, I had prostate cancer diagnosed. It was that funny year where you had to stay home and protect the NHS and I'd been diagnosed over the months that the lockdown began and there wasn't any elective surgery going on because the hospitals were all full of people with COVID. And so I was waiting, I was waiting to go  for surgery. It was a nice summer, wasn't it? And I was outside doing all manner of jobs. We had a bunch of ash saplings growing in among the laurel bushes. I went out to cut down this ash sapling, which I did, I just sawed through it. And on either end of the cut was a very clear image of an angel imprinted in dark brown against the pale fawn background of the natural colour of the wood. And I was taken aback because it was so clear. Everybody I show it to recognises it as an angel with a head and hands and wings and it's in profile. And it was simply to me at that time, a consolation. It was a message really that I wasn’t going through this on my own. As well as the love of God, there was this guardian spirit who was alongside me, always had been alongside me, still is alongside me whilst being in the presence of God, which is the beautiful thing about angels, they're there here and there at the same time. It was a consolation to me. And I've shown it to lots of people in order that we might talk about it. And a lot of people kind of chuckle and go, Oh yeah, yeah. But a lot of people go, Oh my goodness, yes it is. In fact, only two weeks ago, I was compering the Parish talent show. The lady said, Oh, tell us  something about yourself that nobody will know. So I said, I had this appearance of an angel come and it was she who used the term manifestation which I will use now because it's a nice way of saying something is shown to you, without having to go into lots of detail about it. I'd give a little quiz prize to anybody who could tell us where we pray to angels every week at Mass. It didn't take very long for somebody to remember that it's in the I confess that we pray every week to all the angels and saints to pray for us to the Lord our God. And then people are talking to me the following week at Mass and they go, I couldn't get it out of my head. I was thinking about angels in the night. Sometimes it's a matter of remembering the reality, having these spiritual realities brought back to mind. It's not like I'm telling people about angels for the first time. They've been taught about them while they're growing up and then they've just taken them out of their minds when they get back into the more transactional and independence focused way of conducting life. But we all know that there are times where that just runs out of gas and we end up having to submit our lives to the Lord. And at that time, you know, the angels are alongside us in those moments, whether they're difficulties or whether they're really good things, we just are aware of them sometimes. 

Thank you, Mark. You've put that better than I did about the spiritual realities. That's brilliant. And then, Anne, I wonder if we might talk about the experience you had? We'll all be singing Christmas carols over the next few days. You had an experience, I want to say musical experience, that you've associated with angels. Tell us about that. 

I was at a conference quite a long time ago and it was a charismatic conference. We were in a kind of a big top and there was probably about 300, maybe 400 people there. Obviously one of the things about being charismatic is that there is praise and worship, which is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This wave of the Holy Spirit that's come into a lot of churches, including the Catholic Church, over the last 50 years, 60 years. And so we were praising and worshipping in song. And as what often happens, we started then, everybody started singing in tongues, or a lot of people there. And tongues being a gift of the Holy Spirit, whereby you allow the Holy Spirit to sing through you. It's not like being in a choir where you learn a part. You actually just allow the Holy Spirit to use your voice.  It brings you into the presence of God in a deeper way. And the wonderful thing is that everybody joins in together. There's no - if you did it normally, you'd hear this dreadful sound. But what happens is it's just beautiful. And this happened, I don't know, 20 minutes, I can't remember. It left you with, when it finished, which it came to a natural quiet. Sometimes, I would say, a heavy peace. You know, sometimes you go to a place where there's been lots of prayer going on and you can feel this kind of heavy peace. I know Medjugorje, I've felt it, you know, very strongly there. And people obviously were praying from the heart. It was an interaction between God and us, you know, intimate. It stopped in this heavy peace. And I remember having my eyes shut. And then suddenly you heard this kind of, it was so hard to describe. It was like a very high pitch, but not a shriek, but high sound that kept on going. And I remember looking, people all looking around and said, Well, nobody's singing. What's happening?  Nothing's happening. And it went on, I don't know how long, maybe 10 minutes. And it was like, This isn't us. Do you know what's happening? And there was this really, sense of, and it was obviously confirmed by the leaders afterwards, who were at the mics, that this is the angels. The angels had joined us because we were praising God and the angels were joining us because they just flood in when there's praise and worship. Come on, guys, let's go, you know? It was just so beautiful. I can't describe, it was - I'm a musician but it's not like hearing people sing. It was like a tone, a really high tone, beautiful. And it just made you want to cry. And the interesting thing was afterwards I was told that in the paper there was being recorded of sightings of UFOs in the area.  Just leave that with you... 

Thank you, Anne. That is amazing to hear about. I hope that lifts people's hearts. It's making me think of, in Luke's Gospel, the heavenly host appearing to the shepherds. St Luke found a way to describe that. The shepherds found a way to describe that in words that, like you, I'm sure they were struggling with. But it sounds like that kind of experience, doesn't it? 

It was out of normality, but it was beautiful. It wasn't scary. It wasn't anything to do with the occult. It was the exact opposite. It was light. It was beauty. It made you feel like crying, not because of your unhappiness, but because of joy. It was almost like tasting a bit of heaven and those kind of things. If you experience that taste of heaven, you want to, not yet, thank you, but you want to be there.  You want to be part of it. And it was such a privilege.  It made you say, I know this is beautiful. And at the end of my life, I want to be there.  And before. 

That's lovely, Anne. Mark, I think you were saying to me that you were a surgeon and that you had experience with patients feeling that there was a presence with them. Just tell us a bit about that. I'm struggling to put any words around it myself now, but maybe you have some words.

I was looking after this young woman. So I was a vascular surgeon, but she was carrying a really complicated issue that had been a threat to her life. She was coming in for surgery to try to sort this out. And so I had a team of surgeons around who were experienced in different parts of it. So was a bit of a big production. And I went to talk to her in the anaesthetic room beforehand, in an attempt to reassure her and tell her that we were confident we had everybody there and everything was going to be all right. And I was busy trying to reassure her when she just says, it's all right, Mr. G, it's all right. I've seen the angels in there. I know everything's going to be okay. And she was a faith-filled lady of an evangelical background. She said she had seen the angels in the operating room and that she was at peace with it all because she was in their presence and they were her guardians, I guess. We went from this situation where rather than me reassuring her, she was reassuring me and everybody else that everything was going to be all right with this very complicated procedure we were about to undertake. So it was a very nice moment that I recall when somebody else's vision of angels was a source of reassurance to it all. 

I think it'd be good to have a nice concrete example. We're talking about supernatural realities, but let's have a concrete example. Anne, you were talking before about prayer being answered when you've called on the angels to help you. So perhaps you'd tell us about that to inspire us in more concrete ways too. 

There's a particular incident that happened when I was teaching at school. It was like last minute panic. I was actually teaching in a school where the hall had a chapel at the end. You pulled back the shutters and it became the church. So was literally a few steps into the actual church. And at the particular time I had a Year 2 class, so they were seven-year-olds. Every week a class would take Mass, do the readings and the bidding prayers. And this was particularly my turn and also I was doing the music as well. I'd done the register, we had about 10 minutes to get into the hall which was the chapel and then I went to go and get the readings which were put on card for the children and bidding prayers. I went to go and get them and I couldn't find them. Panic set in because I thought, We're going there, there's going to be all the school, there's going to be all parents, there's going to be parishioners, there's going to be a hundred people there. My children can't do Mass. My goodness. So I'm trying not to panic in front of the children, looking around the classroom thinking, Where, where have I put them? Whatever, time was ticking on. And I just said out loud in front of the children, God help me. I mean, it was not a prayer really, but it was utter panic. And this voice as clear as daylight. And I know it was my guardian angel, this voice in my head said, Look in the recycle bin. I flew off to the recycle bin and there they were. What I'd done is guillotined everything and put all the spare bits of card and the actual readings in the recycle bin. And it was literally this voice that said to me, Look in the recycle bin and I would never have thought about that in the panic of that time. And the lovely thing was for the rest of the year that particular class - I had told them what had happened and they were so pure, they were so lovely and every time anything went missing or there was a problem - Miss, shall we say to our guardian angel, shall we ask them? Their faith was just so grown because of that incident.  I know if there's any problem, I know people ask St. Anthony, pray to St. Anthony, but I far rather more rely on my guardian angel. And it's happened many times since then. I think it's really good to ask for the help of our guardian angels and also for protection from things. 

Tell us a bit more about protection then, Anne. We've not really spoken about that so much. Tell us a bit about immediate protection, calling on angels to help us.

There was a time quite a while ago when we were coming up the motorway in the car. My husband was overtaking in the outside lane, going 70 at least. And suddenly we had a blowout. The car started veering towards the central reservation. We went into a spin. Loads of cars there. We just went round and round. It felt like time had stopped still. And we just looked at each other and didn't say a word, but it was almost like, I love you, if this is the end. And we ended up on the hard shoulder facing the right direction. Stunned silence that we were okay. My husband just said to me, Did you tell me to turn the engine off? And I said, I didn't say a word. I'm paralysed with fear. And he said, I heard this voice as clear as daylight, Turn the engine off now. But it was something really practical. We both felt very much that we had been protected by angels at the time and continue to ask for protection. 

Just about the names of angels. I don't make a lot of it. But I have a name for my guardian angel and I know the names of maybe 10 or a dozen other ones. But I think the reason, you know, for saying what the name of your angel is to remind you of it. Now, I know my guardian is called Evelyn. So when I'm thinking of the guardian angel, I refer to him or her by name. It doesn't mean anything in particular other than that there is a name given to me about the guardian angel. It isn't that I’ve thought of the name.  

I think it helps, like we were saying about the spiritual realities, it's easy to just forget about them, especially as we get older from childhood. It just helps to make it more concrete, doesn't it? And then we can keep a handle on it better, maybe, to have a name… Anne saw a sculpture years ago which changed how she pictures angels in her mind. It was on a tomb in one of the cathedrals. 

When you look at it, it's actually the opposite of some kind of fairy because you tend to think when you're younger, know, especially with the guardian angels kind of impression that's given to children, it's kind of a bit like a fairy. It was always a girl.  But this actually was on the tomb probably in ninth century, something like that. And I was really taken aback when I saw it years ago because I thought this looked like a man. It's very much a fierce, protective angel that was put on the tomb and it really struck me because before I'd always had this idea of angels being like girls with pretty wings. I just thought that was interesting that obviously at that time, this was probably about 900 AD, that they didn't have that fluffy idea of an angel.

That is interesting Anne. And I think that shows sometimes where when we put words around things, we accidentally pick up stuff from our own culture maybe and from the media and it can get bit muddled. Listen, thank you both for joining me for this Christmas episode. I hope listeners have found lots there to reflect on at this Christmas time. I think it's been really interesting that we've captured some of the - thinking about the birth of Jesus and what that means for us as human beings made in the image of God. There's something about the immenseness when we're talking about these experiences that are hard to put any language around that really reach us somehow from a different realm. You mentioned, Mark, about knowing that the angel is here with us but also in the presence of God. But also there are those very small concrete specific things about being humans, real situations we're in, real dramas, real ways of talking to each other and educating our children and helping each other grow in our faith. Those very small things too have come out of this conversation, which is also, I think, reflected in the Christmas story and the particularity of Jesus being born as a tiny baby in a particular time and place. All of those features of the Christmas story that we'll be thinking about over this next couple of days. So, thanks ever so much. 

Thank you. 

Bye bye, God bless. 

Listeners, however you're spending Christmas, I hope there is joy and Good News in it. Let's have Elizabeth to sing us out today. Glory to the newborn King.

Carol: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time.  I hope today's conversation has resonated with you.  A new episode is released each Wednesday and you can follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms. Rate and review to help others find it. You can also follow us on social media @kindsofCatholic and remember if you connect with us on Substack you can comment on episodes and share your thoughts and be part of the dialogue there.  Until the next time.