Beginning with the Gospel episode in which Our Lord Jesus Christ is consoled by an Angel during the Garden of Gethsemane Prayer, St. Thomas Aquinas sought to clarify this question.
Redaction (03/10/2023 09:00, Gaudium Press) On the day the Church commemorates the Guardian Angels, a question may arise that is neither disproportionate nor disrespectful: Did Jesus have a Guardian Angel?
Beginning with the Gospel episode in which Our Lord Jesus Christ is consoled by an Angel in His abandonment and atrocious spiritual sufferings endured in Gethsemane during the Garden Prayer, St. Thomas Aquinas sought to clarify this possible question.
Other distinguished authors have also dealt with this question, which arises in other passages of Scripture.
Every man has his own Guardian Angel
It is a well-known doctrine that every man has a Guardian Angel. It would not be strange, then, if the following question arose: did Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, being both God and man – this is the mystery of the Incarnation – also have a Guardian Angel?
The Angels had nothing to teach Jesus
As far as we are concerned, the Angels are like elder brothers entrusted by our common Father to lead us towards our heavenly homeland. They have the mission of guiding us and, in a mysterious way, removing obstacles along the way.
This “custody” or “guardianship” does not consist of an activity of assistance and defence exercised by a subordinate. This “Guardianship” consists of a kind of protective guardianship that adapts to our human freedom and that will be all the more effective the more we rely on it with trust and good will. Under these conditions, we can see that Our Lord could not have had a Guardian Angel as such.
The main occupation of the Guardian Angel, St. Thomas tells us, is to enlighten our intelligence:
“The guardianship of Angels has as its ultimate and principal effect doctrinal illumination” (Summa Theologica I, q. 113, a. 5, ad 2). Our Lord, even in His human knowledge, could not be enlightened by Angels.
Jesus’ knowledge
Theologians recognise three kinds of knowledge in the holy soul of Jesus Christ in His mortal life: the knowledge of the Beatific Vision, infused knowledge and acquired knowledge.
For the first two, He surpassed in depth and breadth of knowledge any creature, without exception: “God made His Christ all the more superior to the Angels” (Heb 1:4). In this double aspect, the Angels had nothing to teach Him.
As for acquired or experimental science, which progressed in Our Lord with age, Christ had no need for the help of Angels to instruct Him on the various objects that were offered to His senses in the great book of the universe.
The service of Angels was convenient for Jesus
Although Our Lord had full power over creatures and could therefore directly obtain everything necessary for His bodily life, the service of the Angels suited Him in two ways.
On the one hand, this material assistance – in the same way as the food and clothing provided to the Child of God by Joseph and Mary, and then to the preacher of the Gospel by the holy women – from the Angels was in keeping with the exterior of weakness and debility with which the Word made flesh had wanted to cover Himself.
On another note, was it not fitting that, even before Christ entered glory, the Angels already testified to Him that they recognised Him as their Master and King? Even if their pious homage was internal or even by discreet external manifestations?
St. Thomas Aquinas’ solution
St. Thomas does not admit that Our Lord had a Guardian Angel in the strict sense of the word, because the role of the “Guardian Angel”, which is properly that of directing and protecting, could not have had the Saviour’s holy humanity as its object.
The sacred authors do not explain the usual way in which this service worked, but they point out various significant acts (Lk 2:13; Mt 4:11; 26:53) which seem to indicate that Our Lord had not just one Angel, but a phalanx of blessed spirits linked to the service and assistance of His holy humanity.
The position of the Angels in relation to Our Lord’s holy humanity is very well expressed by these words of the Angelic Doctor: “It was not a Guardian Angel, as superior, that He needed, but an Angel who would serve Him as inferior. Hence what is said in the Gospel of Matthew (4:11): ‘Angels came to him who served him‘” (Summa Theologica I, q. 113, a. 4 ad 1).
It was the role as ministers, not guardians, that the Angels had to fulfil with the Incarnate Word: they were not custodians, but servants.
The Gethsemane episode
“Comfort Him” – says the sacred text (Lk 22:43). How could the Angel comfort Our Lord, that is, revive His courage, bring Him moral help? St. Thomas puts the objection very well: does it not follow from this fact – notes the holy Doctor – that Christ was instructed by Angels, since “we are comforted by the words of exhortation of those who teach”?
He himself responds to this difficulty: “The comfort received from the Angel was not by way of instruction, but in order to manifest the truth of His human nature” (Summa Theologica III, q.12, a. 4, ad 1). This explanation, we must confess, does not completely satisfy the mind. That is why the authors apply themselves to taking the explanation further.
How the Angel acted
It can be said that the Angel provided something of a moral comfort to Our Lord’s soul, which was delicate among all, and as sensitive to expressions of affection as it was to abandonment, betrayal and outrages.
Thus, the Angel’s role was not (which would be unacceptable) to give our Lord’s soul some real “enlightenment”, or to reveal something new to Him in order to revive His courage.
But whether by means of an external word, or by an interior action on the imagination and memory of the Messiah, the Angel put into effect motives of comfort which the Saviour God knew well, but which He had removed in a more or less direct way from the application of His spirit; for, in order to drink the cup of bitterness to the end, the august Redeemer, at the supreme moment of the Passion, applied Himself to considering the whole extent and depth of that atoning Passion.
Horrible visions and overwhelming thoughts fell upon Him from everywhere, causing inexpressible anguish in His Heart and flesh: “Pains of death compassed me about, and torrents of iniquity troubled me” (Ps 17:5). Then the Angel came to evoke the sweetest images in Jesus’ eyes.
“Ah! Undoubtedly,” says a pious author, “this heavenly messenger drew the Saviour’s attention to the magnificent virtues that would sprout from His divine Blood; He evokes the prophetic picture of these admirable processions of virgins, martyrs, confessors, faithful friends and true repentents of both sexes, of every rank and age, who, despite many weaknesses, will have a sincere and ardent love for Jesus and will do their utmost to offer their good Master reparation for so many sufferings and wounds. “
(Translated, summarised and adapted from L’Ami du Clergé, no. 50, 1911, p. 1111-1113.)
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
