Discerning hearts provides content dedicated to those on the spiritual journey to continue production of these podcasts prayers and more go to discerninghearts .com and click the donate link found there or inside the free discerning hearts app to make your donation thanks and God bless discerninghearts .com presents building a kingdom of love reflections with Monsignor John Assef Monsignor Assef is a priest of the diocese of Scranton Pennsylvania. He has served as a retreat director and confessor to St. Teresa of Calcutta. He continues to offer direction and retreats for the sisters of the missionaries of charity. Monsignor Assef encountered St. Padre Pio who would become a spiritual father to him. He has lived in areas around the world serving in the Pontifical missions a Catholic organization established by Pope St. John Paul II to bring the good news to the world especially to the poor. He continues to serve as a retreat leader and director to bishops priests and sisters seminarians and other religious leaders. Building a kingdom of love reflections with Monsignor John Assef I'm your host Chris McGregor. Angels are so much on my mind today to talk to you about and I would like to begin with the guardian angel. I was very much enamored of my angel as a child. Ever since I can remember my brother and I were roommates and we had in our room you know that picture of guardian angel guiding this child across a bridge and we certainly he and I had so many scrapes as children we have some of them in our book but as two boys growing up and we were so companions because I can't remember being my memories go way back but they they don't go back before my brother because I was only a year and a half old when he came along so I always had this companion and so it's kind of easy for me to believe that I have a companion the angel the guardian angel is given to us from the first moment of our conception the guardian angel is interuterine he is given to you from your mother's womb and from the first moment that that egg fertilizes that is for that seed fertilizes that egg that soul that's blown into that person who now is going to be that's the beginning that's the moment your guardian angel begins to protect you and watch over you so he's with you and assists you in your life in the womb because how many more things are being told to us these days about what happens to the child in the womb it's a whole life in there if you're a single birth if you're you know are you my mother tells the story about that what do they talk about when a child is turned around and I was a breach breath I was going to be a breach birth and what happened to me is I got turned around and there's like all kinds of assistance that goes on within the womb guardian angel is right there assisting you in the birthing you know I think so many times we've it's good for a mother to know that that baby is being watched over and protected how that life is there and how the mother loves that baby from the moment that she knows she's pregnant and so the the baby is being watched over and cared for within the womb and then in the birthing your guardian angel comes with you that that angel stays with you from that moment of conception not only until you die but if you fail to go to paradise that angel reminds people on earth to pray for you so often you know some people who are not yet and may be in purgatory and not yet settled in their in their home forever in heaven that angels work is to go to the people on earth or to others to pray for that soul and I really believe that many of us are reminded oh my grandmother or my uncle so -and -so or having a mass offered for so is really inspired by the angel who comes and asks why don't you have a mass said for your dad why don't you have a mass said for your aunt Tilly so that there's there's that reminder to pray for the dead so until that's also because even in the liturgy itself it says at the death of a person may the angel lead you into paradise may the martyrs receive you on your way so as we go into the eternal city the angels are individually created angels do not multiply like humans so therefore if there are six billion people in this universe and each one of us has a specific guardian angel then there must at least be six billion angels God in making angels we always hear scripturally that there are myriads you know what myriads is millions and billions he just makes them and he creates them individually the least angelic creature is greater than any human creation you know after all man is only half spiritual half of him is material or physical he's half animal half spirit so that our bodily part it's no less beautiful it's a creation that we have feet and arms and legs and and we have a sex to us know that individual creation of my body is a very beautiful creation God has made the the marvel of a human body you know when I go to doctors and see especially if a person becomes ill the functioning of a healthy organ and a body is such a magnificent the eye the complexity of what an ear is or what a face is so what a brain is this is a magnificent each one of us who are human have been given this body creation and we have be given a spirit which is that part of us we are a body soul composite so that when we do die it's not only that the soul goes on to live because that's the part of us that will live eternally that's the part of us that's immortal but so is our body going to be so when the body and we believe that it's going to be raised from the dead we believe in the resurrection of the body so that it will participate in the glory of God in heaven forever or in the damnation in the fires of hell or whatever there is for eternal damnation and torture so we do know that we have any we are not made to die we are made to live eternally and because of Jesus who gives us a new life we are called now to live eternally in heaven he has given us the opportunity of salvation when he died on the cross Jesus saved everyone from the time of the cross back to Adam and Eve but they were not able to enter into glory because of Adam and Eve sin so he by his death on the cross brought salvation to every human being from Adam and Eve down to the year 33 and from the third year 33 to the end of time so that the cross is the salvation of all of mankind the desire of God was to save all of the human family each member of that family has a guardian now I'd love to go over that prayer angel of God my guardian dear to whom God's love commits me here so that God has sent an angel to be with me to watch over me to guard and to assist me to enlighten me to inspire me to guide me so this and we usually like to use the word guard because I think each of us is dealing with a lot of hostility in the world in which we live so there's a protective nature to this friend of ours and be careful watch for yourself and these inspirations that we receive daily and how many times you know driving along there's like an inspiration of why don't you take this street instead of that or that some different you slow down here this is like our guardian protecting us and I I often think how important it is to develop that relationship with our guardian angel to become more familiar I developed a very strong relationship with my guardian angel I think I had it as a child I kind of lost it and then it came back to me very early in my priesthood and I remember meeting a long tradition with Carmelite nuns who said to me why don't you ask your guardian angel its name because your guardian angel has a name it's a particular spirit and if you ask your guardian angel what your name is you would be able to become more familiar because you could call him by name and you could become more dependent on him and ask him and and then develop a closer relationship with him because every guardian angel has a nature it's an angelic nature it is hugely powerful and not incidentally every guardian angel is not the lowest rank of angel you could have a guardian angel from the archangel class you can have an archang you can have an angel that's your guardian from the seraphim or cherubim or Thrones I'll talk about those choirs of angels because they have enormous power each one in gradation and they they come according to the power that was given to them in their nature which is vastly different from each other they are all invisible creatures but they are all creatures made by God who have this nature and it's a particular nature I'm starting off with guardian angels because they're the ones I think that we're most familiar with we'll return to building the kingdom of love with Monsignor John Essip in just a moment did you know that discerning hearts has a free app where you can find all your favorite discerning hearts programming father Timothy Gallagher dr.