Rising Like Incense

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November 29, 2008

It was twenty years ago and Joseph Homick was a novice in a Byzantine-rite Catholic monastery in Redwood Valley, California. His “obedience” that chilly autumn day was to chop down some heavy undergrowth in an area designated as a future building site. “We were extremely poor in those days,” says Joseph, “so for this task I was given a thoroughly-used and quite shabby-looking axe.”

Since the weather was cold, Joseph had several layers of clothing on, and he tackled the manzanita bush with vigor, raising his axe up over his head, then bringing it crashing down onto the bush in a steady rhythm. Suddenly, as he raised the axe, it felt strangely light. That could only mean one thing. “Instantly, fear and a kind of sick feeling invaded me,” says Joseph. “I realized that the axe-head had slipped off the handle and was now spinning somewhere in the air above me.”

It’s amazing how many thoughts came to him in the course of about three seconds, he says. “I didn’t want to look up to see where it was, because I was afraid I’d find out and it would split open my face. I thought I could just run, but then I figured that with my luck I would run right into it. So I just put my arms over my head and ducked. The axe-head landed squarely on my spine.”

The impact knocked the wind out of Joseph, and it took awhile before he painfully got to his feet to examine the damage. What he discovered filled his heart with relief and gratitude, and he spontaneously gave the credit to his guardian angel. “Apparently the spinning axe-head had landed blade-down. It cut through all the layers of my clothing and then cut the skin right across my spine. But it went no farther. Another couple of centimeters and I would have been permanently crippled and probably would not have been able to persevere in the rigors of monastic life.” After that incident Joseph experienced a temporary sore back but a lifelong respect and love for the one whom God placed at his side “to keep me in all my ways” (Psalm 91).

Today Joseph is the Abbot of the monastery, and because I thought he would know, I asked him a question that had come up on a recent radio interview. The caller had heard that when priests are ordained, they are given a second guardian angel (presumably because their work will require extra help.) I wondered if this was true or if Abbot Joseph had ever heard of it.

“I do not know if this is true, though it would be appropriate and most welcome!” says Abbot Joseph. “ But I do have good reason to believe that I have two guardian angels all the same.”

About fifteen years ago the Abbot was praying before an image of the Mother of God in his little “cell” in the monastery early in the morning, with a candle burning before her. “While I was praying I perceived—somehow, though not with bodily senses—two angels standing next to me, one on each side of me, each with a hand on one of my shoulders,” he says. “They were silent, motionless, simply there, like solemn sentinels guarding the one God had placed in their care. Their strength was unquestionable, their determination firm, yet there was nothing fearsome or grim about them—they stood with tenderness and love as well.” The Abbot felt secure and blessed in their presence. After prayer, this awareness faded. He thought he might have imagined it all—but would it have made such a lasting impression?

He examined Scripture, and a few passages tended to confirm that more than one angel could minister to us. But somewhat later Abbot had an opportunity to make a little test. “A woman I know on the east coast is a mystic and has had visions of our Lord and is quite conversant with the angels,” he says. “I hadn’t told her anything about my desire to discover the truth about my second angel. She had asked me (I don’t remember anymore the reason for this) to send my guardian angel to her to bless her. I had never done anything like that before and wasn’t sure how to do it or even if I could do it at all.” (Editor’s note: Pope John XXIII was noted for sending his angel on errands!) “But,” the Abbot goes on, “I got this brainstorm: send the second angel to her! If he shows up, then it’s true, but if nothing happens, then there is no second angel. So that’s what I did. I asked my second angel to go to her and bless her.”

The next time the Abbot talked to this woman, she thanked him for sending his angel to her! “When he arrived,” she said, “I smelled the fragrance of incense like they use in Byzantine churches” (Abbot, remember, is Byzantine.)

“That clinched it for me!” he says. “So now I pray to both of my angels and invoke their intercession and protection. I look forward to the day when I can meet them face to face and openly converse with them and thank them for tirelessly looking out for me. For now, I will remember the quiet presence, the hands on my shoulders. And when we sing at Vespers, “Let my prayer rise like incense,” I’ll remember that it is the angels who bring our prayers to the altar of God (Revelation 5:8 and 8:3).”