The Holy Guardian Angels
Memorial
- Feast Day
- October 2
The Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels celebrates the angelic spirits whom God assigns to watch over each human person. The teaching is rooted in Sacred Scripture: See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father (Matthew 18:10); and the Book of Tobit, in which the angel Raphael accompanies the young Tobias on his journey.
A separate liturgical commemoration of guardian angels developed in the late Middle Ages, especially in Spain and Portugal. Pope Paul III in 1518 granted the feast for Valencia, and Pope Paul V in 1608 extended it as an option to all who wished to celebrate it. Pope Clement X in 1670 extended it as an obligation to the universal Latin Church and fixed the date 2 October, where it has remained.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (sections 334-336) summarizes the doctrine: From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by the watchful care and intercession of angels. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life. The Christian's life of faith is, on the angelic side, a hidden conversation, a help unseen.
The Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels makes daily and personal what the universal angelic doctrine teaches in general. The faithful are encouraged to invoke their guardian angel, whom Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 113) following Saint Jerome assigned to every human soul from baptism, and according to a wider tradition, from birth.
From The Holy Guardian Angels
"See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father."
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