Alfred Delp

When I pace back and forth in my cell, three steps forward and three steps back, hands in irons, ahead of me an unknown destiny, I understand very differently than before those ancient promises of the coming Lord who will redeem us and set us free. And, along with these thoughts, comes the memory of the angel that a good person gave me for Advent two years ago. It held a banner: “Rejoice, for the Lord is near.” A bomb destroyed the angel. A bomb killed the good person, and I often sense that she continues to do angel-services for me. The terror of this time would not be bearable – any more than the terror brought on by our world situation, if we comprehend it – except for this other knowledge that continually encourages us and sets us straight. It is the knowledge of the promises that are being spoken right in the middle of the terror and that are valid.

And it is also knowledge of the quiet angels of annunciation, who speak their message of blessing into the distress and scatter their seeds of the blessing that will begin to grow in the middle of the night. These are not yet the loud angels of public jubilation and fulfillment, these angels of Advent. Silently and unnoticed, they come into private rooms and appear before our hearts as they did long ago. Silently they bring the questions of God and proclaim to us the miracles of God, with whom nothing is impossible.

Advent, despite all earnestness, is a time of refuge because it has received a message. Oh, if people know nothing about the message and the promises anymore, if they only experience the four walls and the prison windows of their gray days, and no longer perceive the quiet footsteps of the announcing angels, if the angels’ murmured word does not simultaneously shake us to the depths and lift up our souls – then it is over for us. Then we are living wasted time, and we are dead, long before they do anything to us.

When the Time Was Fulfilled: Christmas Meditations (Plough, 1964, 2007), 29–30.

J. Kirk Richards, Winged Figure, paper, latex paint, acrylic paint, coffee, wood glue, iron, and rust, 2021. Used by permission.

Bernard of Clairvaux

Walk cautiously (Eph. 5:15); the angels are everywhere near at hand, as God has charged them, in all your ways. In whatever small corner you will, in whatever quiet spot, have reverence for your angel. Would you have the audacity to do in an angel’s presence what you would not in my sight? Do you doubt the presence of the angel you do not see? What if you heard? What if you touched? What if you smelled? Note that presence of something is established not only on the basis of sight. Not even all corporeal things are subject to sight. So how far removed from any corporeal sense are spiritual things, which need to be tracked down by spiritual senses? If you reflect upon faith, you find positive assent of the presence of angels, proof that they are never absent. It causes me no regret to say that faith regards the existence of angels with approval, since the apostle defines faith as being “the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Thus they are present, and present to you, not only with you, but also for you. They are present that they might cover you with protection; they are present that they might do good for you.

Angelic Spirituality: Medieval Perspectives on the Ways of Angels, translated and introduced by Steven Chase (Paulist Press, 2002), 117–119.