Guardian Angels and Why I Don't Believe in Germs

- angel as protector from earthly harm - 

Is your Guardian Angel broken?  

Do you find yourself, regardless of your angel's assistance, still in a frequent state of suffering?  What is WITH that?

Why are we told to pray for help from our Guardian Angels?  Aren't Guardian Angels supposed to be always there working for us whether we ask them to or not?  Isn't angel help, like breathing, an automatic process you don't have to think about all the time?  

Here is a common Guardian Angel prayer:

Angel sent by God to guide me

Be my light and walk beside me

Be my guardian and protect me

On the path of life direct me.

Here is another:

Angel of God my guardian dear

In whom his love commits me here

Ever this day be at my side

To light and guard

To rule and guide.

Now, even a six year old can figure out that people still die.  People still get sick.  Even a 6 year old, if nothing else, stubs his toe and gets a cold.  It surprises me that more kids don't ask hard questions about this.  This happens even if you say your Guardian Angel prayer every day.  Where is the supposedly protective power of all these angels?

- angel as protector from spiritual harm - 

This picture perhaps shows a more accurate concept of the role of our angels.  This angel looks helpful to me.  I would like to have an angel that helps me out like this.

But, help from Guardian Angels aside, it kind of leads us to the age old question:

Why do bad things happen to good people?  

For that matter, why do bad things happen to bad people?  Where is God in all this and why doesn't He do something?  

Here are some reasons God would allow (not cause, but allow) suffering:

A)  Suffering can build character, empathy, humility and help us to grow in love.

B)  We learn lessons from it.  (Especially if it comes as a consequence of our stupidity or meanness.)

C)  Purgatory  - It is a great virtue to look within ourselves and identify things we are doing/thinking/being that could separate us from close friendship with God.  Those things are called sin.  Going to confession gets us forgiveness but . . .  there is still restitution to be made.  There are still consequences of our forgiven sins that if not paid in this life will likely be waiting for us in Purgatory.

So Purgatory is where we pay off these little debts we accumulate in this life before we move on to Heaven with our shiny, clean souls.  Pain and suffering we experience in this life, if offered to God, goes toward paying off that debt and shortens the time of purification we experience in Purgatory, which is a good thing.  Pain and suffering in this life, when offered to God, is pure POWER.  Here are some things you can use that power for:

• reducing the time YOU will spend in Purgatory
• reducing the time someone specific you love spends in Purgatory
• reducing the time someone you don't know or love spends in Purgatory (What a gift!)
• making any of your prayer requests more powerful.  Why do you think people fast in the Bible?  Fasting is a good way to show repentance but it, as a form of voluntary suffering offered up, is a special kind of powerful prayer for any kind of intention you have.

This is one reason why some of the saints practiced bodily mortifications.  (Translation:  hurt themselves on PURPOSE)

This is true of physical, emotional and spiritual pain.  This is true of big pain and itty-bitty pain.

NOTE:  Best I can figure out, there are two parts of "offering something up".  One is to make a conscious decision and effort to give it as a gift to God.  Two is to try not to complain about your suffering.  That kind of ruins the gift.  And why complain when you realize your suffering is making you a powerful generator of POWER FOR GOOD.

I have noticed in my family that often after one of us does something unkind that person will have a little accident.  The offender, for example, might storm off in a huff and walk into a doorway.  We also have a suspiciously large number of chair-related injuries in my home.  You too?  OK, maybe that's just me.

What?  No germs?

Back to Guardian Angels - I have come to believe that my Guardian Angel's job is to protect me from RANDOM suffering.  So Notgod is always hanging around trying to cause me pain and suffering any way he can.  Also, I do stupid things.  I make dangerous mistakes.  My life is constantly full of pain and suffering waiting to get me from all these sources.  My Guardian Angel's job is to only let through the suffering that God specifically allows for some good purpose in my life or the lives of others.

So, I do believe germs exist, but I don't believe random germs are going to make me sick.  They can't touch me without God's permission.  And if they get me sick they will be an opportunity God is presenting me.  Then I will have the choice to waste the suffering by moaning and complaining, or I can see it as a gift that some of the saints actually sought out and longed for.  It is a gift I can give.  And when I give God my suffering I am ACTIVELY, AT THAT MOMENT, SAVING MYSELF, SAVING THOSE I LOVE AND SAVING THE WORLD!   I am putting power in the ammunition stores of the powers of good  in the battle against evil.

I will say my Guardian Angel prayer to help me to listen a little harder for my angel's voice, to thank my angel for his vigilance, and to make sure that nothing random happens to me that isn't purely a gift, in whatever kind of wrapping, from the hand of God.

Random, purposeless suffering stinks.  Suffering for someone you love, well . . . ask Jesus.

What Does Purgatory Sound Like?

Purgatory is Logical

There has GOT to be a purgatory. Not because the Church said it (although that is important), but because of reason and logic.

I am a mother of three. One thing I have learned is that if the threatened punishment is too harsh, the punishment will never be given. The threats my children need to worry about are the smaller ones. Forget "grounded for a month"; fear "not going to the party tonight."

How many times do we reassure ourselves with God's justice towards OTHER people? If someone zips out aggressively in front of you in traffic do you try to be holy and mature and leave the judgment of the offender to God?

What punishment options are available to God's justice? We don't like to believe earthly sufferings are caused by this (whether or not they are). Can God give people the silent treatment in this life? (Sometimes it seems like he does.) God can't punish us in heaven because we believe it to be a place without suffering.

So nothing is going to happen to our aggressive driver except maybe he or she will hit a tree? Maybe he or she will not hit a tree. Where is the justice of God? Should the driver go to hell for being in a jerky mood one day? Maybe there is no justice from God. Maybe God wants us to become so good, holy, patient, tolerant and forgiving that no justice is required of those who sin against us.

The answer to this quandary is purgatory, a place where any number of minor or major crimes can be answered for.

I believe that God is 100% justice and 100% mercy. (Mysteries like that are cool.) If you were to break a window with a baseball as a kid you could go to mommy or daddy and confess your crimes. Assuming that there was some fault involved, like today being "No Playing With Baseballs Day" you would be in trouble. Your parents would accept your apology and then you would need to pay for the window.

Maybe they would see that you truly felt terrible about what you had done because you love them and didn't want to make them sad (not just that you were sad that you got caught). Then maybe you wouldn't have to pay for the window. We accumulate these little debts to God every day and the quality of our contrition rarely makes us deserve a full reprieve.

Without purgatory, how do you repay this debt? You can say Jesus paid the debt so you don't have to. Think about that. That means all the crimes committed against YOU are also not subject to justice. People can go around doing whatever they want as long as they're not so bad that they get sent to hell. They get to heaven and all their debts are erased as if they didn't happen and everyone except Hitler and Attila the Hun on are on the same level and in the same place for eternity. There isn't much of a reason to be good in that kind of system.

I just finished reading a book called Purgatory by Father F.X. Schouppe, S.J. it paints a scary picture of God's justice. Many people from purgatory have appeared to saints and other holy people of the Church and told them about the sufferings there. Some saints and holy people were even taken to purgatory for a look around. Purgatory awaits, seemingly, the vast majority of us. That is 100% justice part.

It amazed me in the book how freely and easily we, in our earthly lives, are able to call down the mercy of God on those in purgatory. Sometimes just having one Mass said for a deceased person was enough to send them on their way to heaven.

$10 is the cost to have one Mass said.

$10.

Our smallest sacrifices here on earth seem to have immense power to release God's mercy upon the poor souls. It seems all we have to do is ask. That is the 100% mercy part. We have an important role to play in that mercy

After reading this book, all my sufferings now have purpose. First, sufferings in this life expiate (or pay the debt) for our sin to a great degree. Second, the small sufferings we offer up for those in purgatory release huge amounts of mercy for their souls. Even the normal day-to-day drudgery of life can be put to this purpose. Doing the dishes. Being patient with a child who is moving SLOWLY.

God without justice doesn't make sense to me. Purgatory makes sense. We need purgatory, at least as a concept. And the souls in Purgatory need our help.

Life 101 Ain't Graded Pass/Fail

From the book Purgatory Explained by the Lives and Legends of the Saints by Fr. F.X. Schouppe, S.J. :

"On this subject the Church proposes two truths clearly defined as dogmas of faith: first, that there is a Purgatory; second, that the souls which are in Purgatory may be assisted by the suffrages of the faithful, especially by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass."

I was thinking that most Christians would agree that you can't audit the class Life 101. There is a grade of some sort given at the end. The existance of Purgatory adds the statement, it ain't pass/fail either.