Guardian Angel
According to mythological or religious beliefs, a guardian angel is an angel sent to protect a country, a place or a person .
In addition to Christianity , the other Abrahamic religions , Islam and Judaism , also know the concept of guardian angels. In Buddhism , the bodhisattvas are worshiped. Guardian angels also play a role in esotericism , such as anthroposophy . Also antique and animist religions local know-called guardian spirits: in the Roman religion guardian spirits were genii called in Greek mythology Daimon .
Judaism
Angel, hebr. מלאך mal'ach "messengers", are understood in Judaism through interpretation of the Tanach and in a long tradition as supernatural beings who stand by God in heaven, but are strictly to be distinguished from God ( YHWH ) and are subordinate to him. Occasionally, you can show selected people God's will and instructions.
In the Jewish belief in heavenly-English beings, the complex explanation of their spiritual world is not governed by a precisely defined system of order, as is the case e.g. B. then seeks to build up the angelology of early Christianity. In later writings (such as the Book of Daniel ) there are names of angels who are assigned certain tasks.
Descriptions of angels and angel teachings can also be found in apocryphal scriptures. So is z. For example, the book of Enoch has a chronicle that reports in detail about a "journey through the ten heavens" and about angels, their names, their tasks and their characteristic properties. The Chronicles of Enoch were declared to be Apocrypha by the church father Jerome in the 4th century AD . The apocryphal book of Tobit , which presumably dates from the 2nd century BC, describes the protective work of the archangel Raphael , who accompanies Tobias on his journey.
Christianity
The classic biblical reference point for belief in the Guardian Angel is Mt 18.10 EU . Old church authors were familiar with the idea of a personal guardian spirit (δαίμων, genius) from their ancient environment, and they found it biblically confirmed here. In the classical angelologies of Dionysius Areopagita and Thomas Aquinas , guardian angels are of secondary importance. They are interested in the angels and their nature as a whole; Guardian angels are among the lower angels. Martin Luther did not reject the doctrine of guardian angels, but only criticized the idea that the highest angels did not care about unimportant people. John Calvin, on the other hand, was skeptical as to whether there were individual guardian angels; As a result, the guardian angel belief was almost universally rejected in Calvinism in the 17th century, but persisted in Lutheranism until the middle of the 18th century and was then understood symbolically.
The worship of the Guardian Angels in the liturgy of the Catholic Church became widespread especially in the 15th and 16th centuries. This happened first in connection with the feast of the Archangel Michael on September 29th; In Judaism he is considered intercessor and guardian angel of the people of Israel with Gabriel . In 1670 Pope Clement X set the Guardian Angel Festival for the Catholic Church on October 2nd .
In the Catholic Adult Catechism it says about Guardian Angels:
“The angels too were created in Christ and for Christ. […] After all, the angels are personal figures of God's protection and care for the believers. In the well-known psalm (and hymn) 'He who dwells in the protection of the Most High', trust and confidence in God is also justified with the following: 'For he commands his angels to guard you on all your ways.' Thus the angels are 'serving spirits, sent to help those who are to inherit salvation'. On the basis of such statements, the belief has developed in the history of piety in the Church that God has given every believer, indeed every person, a special guardian angel. This belief is met with skepticism today, especially in the belittling form of a false belief in children. However, she has - correctly understood - a clue in Jesus' statement about the children: 'Your angels in heaven always see the face of my heavenly Father.' It expresses once again that the visible world has an invisible dimension of depth and that every single person, including and especially the small child, has an infinite value before God. The angels are our helpers and guarantors that our hopes and longing do not go into void, that heaven is open to us. "
In the performing arts, the guardian angel motif can be found in numerous pictorial works since the Renaissance . One of the best-known sculptural representations from the Baroque era is the guardian angel statue by Ignaz Günther (around 1763) in the Munich Citizens' Hall Church . The pictorial theme experienced a heyday in 19th century art. It became particularly popular with the late Nazarenes and was later adopted into religious salon painting . In contrast to the medieval picture type, the religious character of the pictures increasingly took a back seat and became increasingly popular as an artistic motif in popular wall decorations from the end of the 19th century due to the so-called guardian angel pictures in both denominations.
Opposite the guardian angel concept is the tradition of the ominous angel, as evidenced by the Spanish La Foncalada .
Guardian angel belief in Germany
A survey by the opinion research institute Forsa on behalf of the GEO magazine showed in 2005 that around two thirds of all Germans believe in guardian angels. The religious psychologist Sebastian Murken sees this as “proof of the longing for personal care”. The theologian Christa A. Thiel sees the fact that more people believed in Guardian Angels than in a God because angels are "more tangible than God".
In the Sinus study on Catholics in Germany, a stronger belief in guardian angels and an interest in esotericism and spiritualism were found in the group of otherwise rather unrelated “consumer materialists” and “hedonists”.
Islam
See also
- Patron saint
- Guardian Angel Church
- German Guardian Angel Museum
- First German Angel Museum in Engelskirchen
literature
- Peter Michel: The great book of the Guardian Angels . Tosa, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-85492-944-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Adelung: Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect. Volume 3. Leipzig 1798, p. 1698. online
- ↑ Heinrich Krauss: The angels: tradition, shape, interpretation. CHBeck , 2005, p. 8, 9. online
- ↑ See e.g. BH Röttger: Mal'ak jhwh, messenger from God. Freiburg 1978; J. Michl: Engel (Jewish) , in: RAC . Vol. 5 (1962), pp. 60-97.
- ↑ On the subject in more detail: Alexander Altmann et al .: Art. Angels and Angelology , in: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Vol. 2, pp. 150-162.
- ↑ Summa Theologiae I qu 113 art 3 ad 1.
- ↑ Ulrich Luz : The Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 18-25) , Neukirchen-Vluyn 1997, pp. 29-31.
- ^ German Bishops' Conference (ed.): Catholic Adult Catechism, Volume I, 1985, pp. 110, 111.
- ↑ Survey: More Germans believe in Guardian Angels than in God World Online from December 20, 2005
- ↑ Why Guardian Angels Help Heal , Welt Online, November 16, 2007
- ^ Religious and ecclesiastical orientations in the Sinus-Milieus 2005, published by the Catholic media service GmbH, Paul M. Müller: The Catholic Milieus in Germany - Results of the Sinus-Study ( Memento of June 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) from September 2006