(For the audio version of this post, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Mass-Blog-for-the-19th-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2026-2.mp3)
One of the first prayers Catholic parents teach their children is the one to our guardian angel. It’s also one of the first prayers adults stop saying as we get caught up in the worries of our world. We worry about losing the finite goods we think will lead to eternal fulfillment. Thomas Aquinas identified them: wealth, pleasure, power and honor. Lose one or all of them, and we tend to lose our faith. But what does that guardian angel prayer tell us?
God’s love commits us to an angel. And Jesus teaches us that our guardian angel is our faith. We can maintain that faith as long as we can strip ourselves of the world’s finite goods, as Jesus did on the cross. Far from being abandoned as he prayed David’s Psalm 22 from that cross, he was never closer to his heavenly Father. That faith empowered him to rise from our world’s evils, as Elijah and Peter learned to do in this Sunday’s readings.
God told Elijah to look for Him on Mount Horeb. He wasn’t in the raging wind, earthquake or fire, but in the tiny whisper that could only be heard by tuning out those terrors (1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a). Similarly, while Peter ventured out of his boat to meet his Master who was walking on the raging waters, he started to sink. “Lord, save me!” he shouts. Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter, saying “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:22-33)
By restoring Peter’s faith, Jesus acted just as our guardian angel of faith does. Some say this concept of a guardian angel isn’t biblical, but Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 18:10) has Jesus pointing to whom God’s love commits his angels: to those unfazed by wealth, pleasure, power or honor. Jesus groups these innocents among the greatest in God’s kingdom. And he warns his disciples,
“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.”
He adds, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It’s clear, our guardian angel is our faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” Listening for God’s voice above the noise of this world’s false gods is key to maintaining our innocence and hosting God’s Kingdom—which Luke’s gospel tells us is not something far off, but already among us. (Luke 17:21). It’s a quiet place where God’s Word is easily heard.
Tom Andel