Angel Quotes from Saints

How Famous Saints Describe Angels

Man praying to angels
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Many famous saints had close relationships with angels. They often communicated with angels through prayer and meditation, developing friendships with angelic messengers of God.

Wise Quotes From Angels by Saints 

  • "God is the brightest of lights which can never be extinguished, and the choirs of angels radiate light from the divinity. Angels are pure praise without any trace of a bodily deed."
    • --St. Hildegard of Bingen
  • "God is humanity's universal teacher and guardian, but his teaching to humanity is mediated by angels."
  • "Since God often sends us his inspirations by means of his angels, we ought frequently to offer him our aspirations through the same channel. ... Call on them and honor them frequently, and ask their help in all your affairs, temporal as well as spiritual."
    • --St. Francis de Sales
  • "If you remembered the presence of your angel and the angels of your neighbors, you would avoid many of the foolish things which slip into your conversations."
    • --St. Josemaria Escriva
  • "The angels of God accompanied the faithful when the light of his truth only dawned in the new world. And now that the day sprung from on high was visited, and exalted our nature to a union with the divinity, will these beneficent beings be less associated or delighted to dwell with the soul that is panting for heavenly joys and longing to join in their eternal alleluias? Oh, no, I will imagine them always surrounding me and in every moment will sing with them, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory!'"
  • "We should show our affection for the angels, for one day they will be our coheirs just as here below they are our guardians and trustees appointed and set over us by the Father."
    • --St. Bernard of Clairvaux
  • "At the orders of the queen, the angels frequently assisted the apostles in their travels and tribulations ... The angels often visited them in visible shapes, conversing with them and consoling them in the name of the most blessed Mary."
    • --St. Mary of Agreda
  • "The angels who shine like the stars feel sympathy for our human nature and place it before God's eyes just as if it were a book. They attend us. They speak to us in a reasonable way, just as God inspires them to do. In the sight of God they praise people who do good deeds but turn away from those who are evil."
    • --St. Hildegard of Bingen
  • "I have great reverence for Saint Michael the Archangel; he had no example to follow in doing the will of God, and yet he fulfilled God's will faithfully."
    • --St. Faustina Kowalska
  • "The good angels hold cheap all that knowledge of material and transitory things which the demons are so proud of possessing -- not that they are ignorant of these things, but because of the love of God, whereby they are sanctified, is very dear to them, and because, in comparison of that not merely immaterial but also unchangeable and ineffable beauty, with the holy love of which they are inflamed, they despise all things which are beneath it, and all that is not it, that they may with every good thing that is in them enjoy that good which is the source of their goodness."
    • --St. Augustine
  • "Those closest to God in heaven, the seraphim, are called the fiery ones because more than the other angels they take their fervor and ardor from the intense fire of God."
    • --St. Robert Bellarmine
  • "All the works of the angels and the inspirations they impart are also accomplished or granted by God. For ordinarily these works and inspirations are derived from God by means of the angels, and the angels also in turn give them one to another without delay."
    • --St. John of the Cross
  • "Pride and nothing else caused an angel to fall from heaven. And so one my reasonably ask whether one may reach heaven by humility alone without the help of any other virtue."
    • --St. John Climacus
  • "Cherubim means knowledge in abundance. They provide an everlasting protection for that which appeases God, namely, the calm of your heart, and they will cast a shadow of protection against all the attacks of malign spirits."
    • --St. John Cassian
  • "If you are willing to listen to the Lord of the angels, my soul, you will have no reason to envy the angels their lofty place or how they move at tremendous speeds without tiring. For you will not only be equal to the angels when you are freed from the body, but also ... you will possess together with your body heaven as your own home."
    • --St. Robert Bellarmine
  • "Is there a greater happiness than to imitate on earth the choir of angels?"
    • --St. Basil the Great
  • "God loves in the seraphim as charity, knows in the cherubim as truth, is seated in the thrones as equity, reigns in the dominions as majesty, rules in the principalities as principle, guards in the powers as salvation, acts in the virtues as strength, reveals in the archangels as light, assists in the angels as piety."
    • --St. Bernard of Clairvaux
  • "The angels were created in the heavens and in the state of grace by which they might be first to merit the reward of glory. For although they were in the midst of glory, the divinity itself was not to be made manifest to them face to face and unveiled, until they should be merited such a favor by obeying the divine will."
    • --St. Mary of Agreda
  • "Although the angels are superior to us in many ways, yet in some respects ... they fall short of us with regard to being in the image of the Creator; for we, rather than they, have been created in God's image."
    • --St. Gregory Palamas
  • "We are not angels but we have bodies, and it is madness for us to want to become angels while we are still on earth."
  • "Poverty is that heavenly virtue by which all earthy and transitory things are trodden under foot, and by which every obstacle is removed from the soul so that it may freely enter into union with the eternal Lord God. It is also the virtue which makes the soul, while still here on earth, converse with the angels in heaven."
  • "The powers of hell will assail the dying Christian; but his angel guardian will come to console him. His patrons, and St. Michael, who has been appointed by God to defend his faithful servants in their last combat with the devils, will come to his aid."
    • --St. Alphonsus Liguori
  • "If we detect an angel by the effect he is producing, let us hasten to pray since our heavenly guardian has come to join us."
    • --St. John Climacus
  • "Let us be like the holy angels now. ... If one day we are to be in the angelic court, we must learn how, while we are still here, the manners of the angels."
    • --St. Vincent Ferrer
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Hopler, Whitney. "Angel Quotes from Saints." Learn Religions, Feb. 8, 2021, learnreligions.com/angel-quotes-from-saints-4002835. Hopler, Whitney. (2021, February 8). Angel Quotes from Saints. Retrieved from https://www.learnreligions.com/angel-quotes-from-saints-4002835 Hopler, Whitney. "Angel Quotes from Saints." Learn Religions. https://www.learnreligions.com/angel-quotes-from-saints-4002835 (accessed March 29, 2024).