Angelic Visitations

This is the feast day of the Holy Archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.

Angels had always been sort of obscure in my life as a protestant because I was never quite sure of much about them-- only that they existed, that they were all around us, and that they rejoiced when sinners turned to Jesus. Coming back to the RCC has really given me this whole new "vision" for (and appreciation for !) the angels in my life.

The Church, for example, teaches that each of us have a guardian angel, assigned to us (the beauty of these traditions is that they were handed down from such awesome sources. The Church fathers believed in guardian angels, and thus, we do as well. Somewhere along the line, someone heard from Jesus who told someone else that each of us have a guardian angel.) and in my newfound appreciation for my guardian angel (And my kids' angels!!) after the events of last week, I have been drawing ever nearer to him and being aware of his presence.

So it only seemed right that today, after a week of drawing closer to the Holy Spirit and closer to my guardian angels and specifically to the angel known as Michael, who is a great protector against the wickedness and snares of the devil, that a feast day to celebrate these holy angels would just "happen" to pop up for me. God is awesome like that!

I was given the opportunity to do my half hour of mental prayer before mass, which is rare, and was awesome. As I was praying, and asking God's angels to share in my prayer, I saw a vision in my minds eye (my eyes were closed) that correlated with a tangible physiological change I was experiencing.... very incredible stuff. Please keep in mind that I am not sharing these things with you out of any motivation other than the one I'm about to disclose: I'm an open book, and in that book some of you might find encouragement, consolation, or even solace, because I pray every day that the Holy Spirit would use me to reach YOU. So if I'm saying this, it's not for me. It's for you. Actually , it's for HIM.

In my head, I felt my guardian angel put his hand on my chest, over my heart, and telling me to "be opened." This happened just as I was praying for more of the Holy Spirit. A warmth spread from my heart center all the way out to my extremities and I suddenly felt "lighter," if I can describe it that way... just like I could fly away. Or rather, like everything around me that was tangible and physical was melting away. Right as that happened, I felt a new annointing in the Spirit, virtually identical to the first time I was baptized in the Spirit, and I began to pray in tongues.

I've prayed in tongues a little since returning to the Church, but not like this-- where I was just... elsewhere. It was very quiet. There were people all around me who were praying and the church was perfectly still and silent, and no one noticed the High-on-the-Holy-Spirit girl in the front row with tears on her cheeks and a prayer in her heart.... but it was there, nonetheless, and it was AWESOME! The thing about tongues is--- (And please, spare me the "tongues aren't a gift for today" comments, myspaz r&pers, mmmk? We've got about twenty threads down on that topic. :P) you can NEVER force it. You can never sit down and say, "OK, I'm going to pray in tongues now," and that's it. No. You have to just sit down and say... "Lord, have your way in me. Help me to pray. Holy Spirit, set my tongue on fire." Because God is a gentleman, and He will always wait for our permission, but He is also a gift, and he will always wait for us to sit down and be ready to recieve instead of allowing us to just TAKE what He has to offer.

You can imagine, after that experience, that I was on fire for mass. And I wasn't disappointed. During the homily, Father was talking about how a lot of people leave the Authentic Christian religion, and go into "spirituality," they looooove to connect with the angels. He made the very profound comment that people did that because the angels will help them but will not judge them. Wow! Soooooo true. It was God's way of reminding me that I needed to continue to face my personal sins as they come lest I forget that none of this-- absolutely NONE of this-- is about me.

The other thing I'm seeing right now that is just so moving is the whole "big picture" of what God is doing in my parish and in the Church at large. I'm going to blog about it at length later but suffice to say, for now, that I'm so thankful for the Holy Spirit, and I strongly believe that He is our advocate in these end times.... openness to Him is the best thing we can do as believers. Missing out on Him is missing out on half the point!

God is putting other Charismatic Catholics in my life to remind me that the Holy Spirit has a plan for the Church and a future, and in a sense, God is putting me in their lives to remind them that Jesus gave authority to His Church to make sure that we come under the influence of the Spirit in a manner that is orderly and not unruly, one that builds up instead of tearing down, one that is firmly planted on The Rock rather than blowing mindlessly about... that we maintain reverence and respect and deference and obedience to the Magesterium, and that more than anything else, we just need to PRAY! We need to pray for God to move and to reveal to us more and more what He is doing. We need to pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Roman Catholic Church, and each one of individually needs to welcome the Holy Spirit of God in and take a lesson from those persons who have been able to lay flat before the altar and say "Lord, have your way in me."

In other words, we could all use a good dose of surrender.... taking a cue from the words to the worship song I'm sure you're all familiar with:

"Cause all of life, comes down to just one thing

and that's to know you, Oh Jesus, and to make you known."