Photon Farms: Guardian Angel

As I was reading my Padre Pio Lenten Devotional yesterday, the following jumped out at me:

"May your good Guardian Angel always watch over you; may he be your guide on the rugged path of life. May he always keep you in the grace of Jesus and sustain you with his hands so that you may not stumble on a stone. May he protect you under his wings from all the snares of the world, the devil and the flesh..." (Letters III, 84)

"When Jesus was alone, feeling abandoned, and in agony, God the Father sent an angel to strengthen him." (Letter I, 683)

I then recalled that I used to include a prayer to my guardian angel in my daily prayers, but somehow stopped that practice along the way. After this nudge from Padre Pio, I may just restore it to my morning prayers again.

At the very least it prompted me to put together this Visio Divina card.

This image won my heart with its beautiful Byzantine style,
scripture quote and little child that, in a way, we all are.

The first two prayers were intermittently part of my prayer rule (or as my beloved would call it: my sacred rhythm) when I first entered the Byzantine fold over a decade a go. I think I found them in a prayer book my Priest Fr. John Winfrey collated and published called The St. Ambrose Prayer Book.

The second two I've seen around in various prayer books but found them on this Catholic Gallery page. Thier simplicity, rhyme and rhythm make them easy to remember for both children and us that are young at heart.

Further research turned up a great blog post by Orthodox Priest Fr. Stephen Freemen. In it he quotes a prayer that his son composed at age four in response to an image like the one below. This is probably my all time favorite guardian angel prayer:

Dear St. Michael, guard my room.

Don’t let anything eat me or kill me.

Kill it with your sword. Kill it with your sword. Amen.

Seriously, what isn't to love about that!? Best. Prayer. Ever!

There were some other images that contended to be on the front of this Visio Divina Card... Check out this one!

This one would have won if they had
actually been guarding someone.

This prayer from a Hallow blog post also caught my attention as particularly beautiful:

O Most holy Angel of God, appointed by God to be my guardian, I give thee thanks for all the benefits which thou hast ever bestowed on me in body and soul. I praise and glorify thee that thou condescended to assist me with such patient fidelity, and to defend me against all the assaults of my enemy. Blessed be the hour in which thou were assigned me for my guardian, my defender and my patron. In acknowledgment and return for all thy loving ministries to me, I offer thee the infinitely precious and noble Heart of Jesus, and firmly purpose to obey thee henceforward, and most faithfully to serve my God. Amen.
--St. Gertrude, 14th century

There are so many images and prayers to chose from and of course they couldn't all fit on the card so I just had to choose an image and few good prayers in the end.

Suffice it to say, the most generous strains of Christian teaching have long asserted that we all have a guardian angel assigned to us. Scripture seems to allude to the notion and traditionally the Church has generally affirmed it and guardian angels are referenced in catechisms (see CCC 336 for example). I for one am grateful for all of this and will ask my angel to pray for me and keep looking out for me and my loved ones.