Angels:
|
My angel, Sophia, told me this text could be applied to me, speaking to her!
Welcome to the web page for Angels: From Body-guards to Spirit-directors, a book and audio cassette by Father Thomas Francis, OCSO (Trappist Monk).
"Hollywood and Hallmark have done a terrible injustice to the angelic order. Angels are going to file a class-action lawsuit for misrepresentation."
"In my booklet, I'm trying to move angels from crisis management to friendship. The angels know the whole created order in a few simple ideas. They're willing to share that with us. But their main purpose is to lead us to the love of God Triune and the love of neighbor, including angels."
"I'm kind of God Triune's spokesman for the angels."
"Most of the angel stories are what I call 'crisis management'. Certainly angels do that, but their primary job is not to serve as Secret Service agents. It's to serve as spiritual guides--to bring us to God Triune."
"I have been rescued from physical danger by my angel three times. In 1958, while working about 40 feet above the ground I leaned out too far while working on building the monastery. I should have fallen but an invisible agent pushed me back onto the building. Since that time she has saved me from serious injury in two major automobile accidents that destroyed the cars that I was riding in."
"I named my own angel, about two years ago, after studying Chapter 7 of the Book of Wisdom in the Catholic Bible. It contains 21 adjectives for the Wisdom of God,. When I heard a voice say, 'all these describe me, your Guiding Angel', I named her Sophia from the Greek word for wisdom."
"I accept the Catholic teaching that each person has an angel assigned in the womb who stays throughout life as companion and guide."
"Modern thinking tends to reduce angels to a psychological mechanism, but that's not what they are. These beings are independent of you. Everyone has a personal angel. Angels don't have bodies, gender or names but humans tend to visualize them that way.
"Current depictions of angels as chubby, rosy-cheeked children or 'fat babies', don't begin to suggest the power and wisdom angels have. The images of an angel as a winged adult are fine, but remember it's a symbol. Behind the symbol is a reality... The reality is they are incorporeal spirits of superior intelligence and love."
"But they can materialize and de-materialize as they choose. In the last century, a priest named Don Bosco used to work in the slums of Turin, Italy. Whenever he entered the slums, a fierce dog would appear at his side. It would disappear when he left. That dog was Bosco's angel."
"An angel could just as well take the form of a truck driver who stops on an isolated country road to help someone in distress and then is gone when the person turns to thank him."
Books have been written about angels in Christian, Jewish, New Age, and many other traditions recently. And those have been subdivided into Catholic, Orthodox, and Reformation theologies and experiences.
Now the Catholic tradition has been further expanded by the publication of Angels: from Body Guards to Spirit Directors, an unusual 32-page booklet that offers a very mystical approach to angels within the Catholic sphere. The author is Father Thomas Francis, OCSO, a Trappist monk from Holy Spirit Monastery in Conyers, Georgia. Father Tom Francis, who has his own stories of angelic intervention and help, is in charge of the Book Department of the Abbey Store. (If you are in the area -- the abbey is 45 minutes from Atlanta -- you will find a wealth of angel gifts and angel books at the store.)
The booklet, which is available in English and Spanish and on cassette, presents the view that our guardian angels ought to be thought of more as guiding angels, individual spiritual directors, than as mere protectors. Their purpose is to lead us to contemplation of the Triune God who dwells in our hearts. In ordinary terms, a spiritual director is someone skilled in helping an individual focus their life on God. Father Thomas sees our guardian angels as the quintessential spiritual director.
Father Thomas also gives a useful outline of what a number of Catholic mystics and theological writers have said of angels, including St. John of the Cross, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. He has other subheads, including "Making Friends with Your Guiding Angel", and a "Method of Prayer with Your Guiding Angel". He has some helpful advice for being in constant communication with one's angel He concludes with his own expanded version of some of the most frequently found prayers and litanies of the angels.
Father Thomas also includes his own story of how his angel saved his life when he was about to fall off the monastery roof one day. He calls her Sophia.
I found this booklet a most helpful and prayerful experience, coming as I do out of a Catholic tradition. And it is very Catholic, using terminology that might not always be easily understood by those from other traditions.
Fr. Thomas Francis was born (1927) and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Catholic parochial grade schools and Calvert Hall High School run by the Christian Brothers. He entered the Novitiate of the Brothers of St. Francis Xavier in 1946. He stayed through two years novitiate and three years of Temporary Vows. During this time, he attended the Catholic University in Washington and the University of Detroit.
When Br. Francis informed his superiors that he would join the Trappists after his temporary vows had expired, he was sent to teach at their high school in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1951, Br. Francis entered the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia and went on to Solemn Profession and Ordination to the priesthood in 1958. After teaching theology and scripture for a few years to the young monks, he volunteered to go to one of the monasteries in Kenya, Africa. There he remained for five years, again teaching theology and Scripture to the African monks. He had to learn Swahili in order to minister the Sacraments and Mass to the local people, many of whom helped the monks with their farm work. In 1978 he returned to Africa, spending a year at the Cistercian monastery in Nigeria.
Fr. Francis' interest in the angels really picked up in 1992 when he had an "angelic experience" while reading Chapters 6 through 9 of the Book of Wisdom. From that experience finally came his recent booklet on angels. Already it has sold over 20,000 copies in English, 5,000 in Spanish, and over a thousand audio cassettes.
You can obtain this excellent booklet directly from the Abbey Store. Copies, in either English or Spanish, are available for $2.00 each plus shipping and handling. Orders of $30 or more receive one free gift and orders of $50 or more receive two free gifts. Why not order several for gifts?
Father Francis has also read his booklet into an audio cassette which is available for $5.00 in English or Spanish, plus shipping and handling using the chart below. These can be ordered online by going to the Abbeystore site, by mail at the address below, by phone at 1-800-592-5203, by fax at 770-860-9343, or by e-mail (pre-payment required, personal check, visa, mastercard, and discover accepted). Shipping and handling is as follows:
Order Total |
Shipping & Handling Fee |
$0-$20.00 |
$4.00 |
$20.01-$40 |
$5.00 |
$40.01-$60 |
$6.00 |
$60.01-$100 |
$7.00 |
$100.00 and up |
$8.00 |
| The Abbey Store, located on the grounds of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, is found on Georgia Route 212 about 20 miles east of Atlanta. The Abbey Store Online is located at: http://www.abbeystore.org | Abbey Store Mail Order Department 2625 Highway 212 SW Conyers, GA 30208 Fax: (770) 860-9343 Email: abbeystore@abbeystore.org |
[ return to the top of this page | return to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit home page ]
