Angels: The REAL Guardians of the Galaxies

St. Thomas Aquinas on their unseen influence in the cosmos

A CALLER ON MY radio show today asked whether angels are responsible for the “vibrations” heard throughout the universe. He had come across a speaker who suggested something along those lines and wanted to know if it was odd speculation or if the Church actually teaches anything that resembles it. His description mixed a few ideas together, but it touched on something more significant than he realized.

Catholic teaching has always held that angels are real spiritual beings who serve God in ways both revealed and hidden. Scripture hints at some of their responsibilities, the Fathers expand on that picture, and the great theologians explain how their activity fits within God’s providence. The idea that they exercise influence within the created order is not a modern fantasy. It is part of the Catholic understanding of how divine governance reaches into the visible world.

Before turning to St. Thomas Aquinas, it helps to recall that the Church has never claimed to know the full scope of what angels do (Catechism 328–336). What has been revealed shows that they carry out genuine tasks, and the tradition teaches that their responsibilities extend far beyond what Scripture records. That is the context for understanding how a casual remark about “vibrations” can gesture, however clumsily, toward an older and richer teaching.

St. Thomas Aquinas states plainly that angels serve in God’s external missions:

“Hence it is manifest that they [the angels] can execute the divine ministries and are sent in external ministry.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.112, a.2, corp.

He explains that their service includes real offices ordered toward both man and the visible world:

“Angels are called ministering spirits, not only because they convey divine enlightenment and the divine will to men, but also because they execute the divine ministry as regards the whole corporeal creation.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.112, a.4, ad 2

Aquinas goes further and teaches that God governs the created order through them:

“All corporeal creatures are governed by God through the angels.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.110, a.1, ad 1

And again:

“The execution of the divine ministry is accomplished by the angels.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.103, a.6, ad 1

This includes the motions of the heavenly bodies, a point that clarifies the caller’s question directly. Aquinas affirms the traditional understanding that spiritual beings serve as movers within the cosmos:

“The lowest beings are moved by spiritual substances… hence the heavenly bodies are moved by spiritual substances.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.110, a.3, corp.

He adds that their influence is not mechanical but intellectual and voluntary:

“Spiritual substances move corporeal things by their will.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.110, a.3, ad 1

He also writes:

“Corporeal creatures are governed by God through spiritual creatures, and hence the heavenly bodies are moved by them.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.70, a.3, ad 3

Finally, Aquinas acknowledges the limits of our knowledge:

“The particular offices of the angels are not altogether known to us.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.57, a.5, ad 3

Aquinas’s teaching that angels move the heavenly bodies reflects the standard medieval cosmology, in which angels were understood to be “celestial movers” (the intelligentiae motrices). After the Newtonian revolution, theologians such as Francisco Suárez, S.J., and John of St. Thomas set aside the idea that angels act as physical movers of planets, while retaining the broader doctrinal principle that angels can influence the material world whenever God wills it. The Church has never defined the precise ways angels act upon creation, so the medieval view remains theologically sound even if no longer scientifically descriptive.

Taken together, these passages give the clear answer the caller was seeking. Catholic theology does not speak in pop-science categories such as “vibrations,” but it does teach that angels exercise real influence within the structure and movement of the created world. The language differs, but the underlying point is more profound than what he heard in passing.

Biblical Names and Choirs of Angels

Below is a concise summary of the nine choirs of angels as referenced in Scripture, along with the traditional understanding of some of their duties. These tasks are not restrictive; many can be exercised by angels of different ranks.

Seraphim — “The Burning Ones”
• Isaiah 6:1–7

Cherubim — Guardians of Sacred Places
• Genesis 3:24
• Exodus 25:18–20

Thrones — Linked with God’s Judgments
• Colossians 1:16

Dominions — Exercising Governing Authority
• Colossians 1:16

Virtues — Associated with Divine Power
• Ephesians 1:21

Powers — Restraining Evil Forces
• Ephesians 6:12
• Colossians 1:16

Principalities — Guiding Nations and Peoples
• Daniel 10:13, 20–21
• Colossians 1:16

Archangels — Heralds of Divine Messages
• Daniel 12:1
• Jude 9
• 1 Thessalonians 4:16

Angels — Messengers and Guardians of Human Beings
• Psalm 91:11–12
• Matthew 18:10
• Hebrews 1:14

What Happens to Your Guardian Angel When You Die?

When a human soul leaves the body and enters eternity, the angel’s commission as guardian comes to an end. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that guardianship is ordered to the protection and guidance of a viator—a pilgrim still capable of sin, merit, repentance, and spiritual danger. Once death fixes the soul’s destiny, those conditions no longer exist, and the specific office of “guardian” ceases (Summa Theologiae I, q.113, a.5, ad 2).

But the loss of the office does not mean the loss of the relationship—at least for the saved. The Church’s greatest saints and doctors consistently affirm that the bond formed during earthly life endures in heaven. St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Lawrence of Brindisi, St. John Paul II, and Benedict XVI all teach that the same angel who once protected you becomes your companion in glory, deepening your vision of God and sharing forever in your joy.

“In heaven we will see our guardian angels face to face and rejoice with them forever.”
Benedict XVI

Thus the guardian’s earthly duty ends, but its spiritual fruit unfolds into an everlasting communion of light, praise, and friendship between you and your angel.

What About the Angels of Those Who Go to Hell?

Catholic tradition is equally clear about the fate of the guardian angels assigned to the damned. Their office ends at death just as it does for the blessed, but without any ongoing companionship. St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

“The angels do not continue to guard those who are damned, because such guardianship is ordered only to bringing men to salvation.”
Summa Theologiae I, q.113, a.6, ad 1

The angel experiences no sorrow as angels are impassible (i.e., not subject to emotions or other passions) but the relationship is fully severed. Theologian Francisco Suárez, S.J. (1548–1617), teaches in his treatise De Angelis that a guardian angel’s specific role of accompanying and assisting an individual soul ceases once that soul has undergone the particular judgment immediately after death (Hebrews 9:27). At that point, the angel is released from its former particular task and either returns to the general service proper to its angelic choir or is assigned new missions by God (De Angelis, lib. 7, cap. 16, nn. 11–12).

This teaching appears across Catholic tradition on angels. The Catechism of the Council of Trent implies it (see Part IV, “Deliver us from evil,” on the ministry of the guardian angels); twentieth-century German theologian Fr. Ludwig Ott clearly teaches it; and St. Alphonsus Liguori expresses it starkly:

“When a soul is damned, its guardian angel abandons it forever and leaves it to the demon who torments it.”
Preparation for Death, Consideration 26

For the blessed, the guardian becomes an eternal friend. For the lost, the bond ends instantly and irrevocably.

How Angels Can Be “Present” in More Than One Place

Another striking truth about the holy angels is that, unlike human beings, they are not limited by space in the way we are. A human person can be only in one place at one time, because our mode of presence is bodily and tied to locomotion. Angels, being pure spirits, are not circumscribed by physical extension. As St. Thomas teaches, an angel “is in a place by application of its power, not by any extension of its substance” (Summa Theologiae I, q.52, a.1). An angel can be present where it acts without “occupying” space as bodies do.

Christ Himself hints at this in Matthew’s Gospel. Speaking of children, He refers to “their angels” who “always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 18:10). These words reveal something astonishing: guardian angels are in heaven enjoying the Beatific Vision while also ministering to those entrusted to them—even the unborn who die before birth. Their presence with us does not pull them away from God, and their vision of God does not keep them from aiding us. They lose nothing.

Your guardian angel does not “travel back and forth” between heaven and earth, nor does he operate like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life. The real angels are far more powerful, more beautiful, and far more aflame with love for God than any cinematic portrayal. A close friend once described them as “vast conflagrations of charity”—a vivid image capturing something of their purity, power, beauty, joy, and love for God.

APPENDIX: A Sneak Peek at the Fathers on the Holy Angels

These selections offer a brief look at how the early Church understood the activity of angels within God’s providence. They are a small sample of the broader tradition summarized in Jean Daniélou’s The Angels and Their Mission.

St. Basil the Great
“They [the angels] fill the essence of this invisible world, as Paul teaches us. ‘For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.’”
Hexaemeron, Homily 1.5

St. Basil the Great
“The orders of angels, the heavenly hosts, all intellectual natures named or unnamed, all the ministering spirits, did not live in darkness, but enjoyed a condition fitted for them in light and spiritual joy.”
Hexaemeron, Homily 2.5

Origen
“The Most High… divided the nations… according to the number of the angels of God.”
Contra Celsum 8.31

Athenagoras of Athens
“We recognise also a multitude of angels and ministers, whom God… distributed and appointed… to occupy themselves about the elements, and the heavens, and the world, and the things in it, and the goodly ordering of them all.”
A Plea for the Christians 24

Copyright © 2025 Patrick Madrid. All rights reserved. All text, images, and other original content are the property of the author.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this post. If so, please tap the Share button above to post it on X or Instagram or to send it to someone who might be interested in it. And if you enjoy thoughtful, friendly, faith related content, you’ll appreciate my daily program on Relevant Radio. Listen here or get the free Relevant Radio app.

I hope you enjoyed this post. If so, please tap the Share button above to post it on X or Instagram or to send it to someone who might be interested in it. And if you enjoy thoughtful, friendly, faith related content, you’ll appreciate my daily program on Relevant Radio. Listen here or get the free Relevant Radio app.