“How many angels can dance on the point of a pin?” My 6th Grade teacher asked our class at Our Lady of the Foothills.
This spiritual question stumped most of us, since we had no data on the celestials’ weight, size, or their favorite dances, but my best friend coughed at his desk and Sister Mary Goretti asked, “Do you have an answer?”
“Yes, sister.” Chuckie Manzi had his hands folded on the desk, for the nuns considered them playthings of the devils.
“And that’s how many?” Sister Mary Goretti was a good teacher, but had to follow the curriculum set forth by the archdiocese of Boston.
“None, because cherubs are about the size of a parrot, sister,”
“And how do you know that?” Sister Mary Goretti twirled her fingers, expecting a joke
“In cartoons the angels sit on your shoulder and tell you to do something good. They’re about the same size as a pirate’s parrot.” Chuckie didn’t crack a smile. He was dead serious.
“Cartoons are not real. Anyone else?” She looked at me, since I was her top student.
“I have to agree with Chuckie, sister,” I replied with a straight face.
“That cherubs are the size of parrots?”
“No, about how many angels can dance on a pinhead.” I was her best student in math.
“And the answer is?”
“None, sister.”
“Why none?” She was intrigued by my answer.
“Because at dances the nuns tell boys and girls to make room for the Holy Ghost and no angel that size could dance on a pinhead.”
“The Holy Ghost is not an angel.” Sister Mary Magdalene drew a circle on the chalkboard. “If God wanted it, God could fit the entire universe on a pinhead. He is all-knowing and all-powerful.”
“Yes, sister.” The entire class responded with abject obedience. Nuns were the frontline of the Church. They protected the infallibility of the Pope by their own ability to never be wrong and I rarely challenged the sisters, despite having rejected God and all his works after the drowning of my best friend in 1960.
Angels too, but the vast majority of Americans hold that Angels are with them most of the day as a secondary insurance against mishaps, side-ups, and bad traffic and I recently received this email from a childhood friend.
You are in your car driving home. Thoughts wander to the game you want to see or meal you want to eat, when suddenly a sound unlike any you’ve ever heard fills the air. The sound is high above you. A trumpet? A choir? A choir of trumpets? You don’t know, but you want to know. So you pull over, get out of your car, and look up. As you do, you see you aren’t the only curious one. The roadside has become a parking lot. Car doors are open, and people are staring at the sky. Shoppers are racing out of the grocery store. The Little League baseball game across the street has come to a halt. Players and parents are searching the clouds.
And what they see, and what you see, has never before been seen. As if the sky was a curtain, the drapes of the atmosphere part. A brilliant light spills onto the earth. There are no shadows. None. From whence came the light begins to tumble a river of color spiking crystals of every hue ever seen and a million more never seen. Riding on the flow is an endless fleet of angels. They pass through the curtains one myriad at a time, until they occupy every square inch of the sky.
North.
South.
East.
West.
Thousands of silvery wings rise and fall in unison, and over the sound of the trumpets, you can hear the cherubim and seraphim chanting, Holy, holy, holy. The final flank of angels is followed by twenty-four silver-bearded elders and a multitude of souls who join the angels in worship. Presently the movement stops and the trumpets are silent, leaving only the triumphant triplet: Holy, holy, holy. Between each word is a pause. With each word, a profound reverence. You hear your voice join in the chorus. You don’t know why you say the words, but you know you must. Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is quiet. The angels turn, you turn, the entire world turns and there He is. Jesus.
Through waves of light you see the silhouetted figure of Christ the King. He is atop a great stallion, and the stallion is atop a billowing cloud. He opens his mouth, and you are surrounded by his declaration:
I am the Alpha and the Omega. The angels bow their heads. The elders remove their crowns. And before you is a Figure so consuming that you know, instantly you know:
Nothing else matters. Forget stock markets and school reports. Sales meetings and football games. Nothing is newsworthy. All that mattered, matters no more….
For Christ has come. And, please let me know the exact time you read this. It is mystical–honest this morning when the Lord opened a window to Heaven, he saw me, and He asked: My child, what is your greatest wish for today? I responded: “Lord please; take care of the person who is reading this message, their family and their special friends. They deserve it and them very much”
The love of God is like the ocean, you can see its beginnings but not its end. This message works on the day you receive it. To some it may sound dumb, but the person who sent this to me was impressed with its timing. Let us see if it is true. ANGELS EXIST, but sometimes, since they don’t all have wings we call them FRIENDS, SUCH AS YOU.
Soon too. Supposedly the reason the USA invaded Iraq was that the Neo-Cons and religious right sought to hasten his Second Coming with an Armageddon in accordance with the severn seals of the apocalypse coming prior to 2012. 1- False prophets aka The Democrats. 2- “Wars and rumors of wars such as Iraq and Iran. 3- “Famines” No more trans-fat in fast food. 4- “Earthquakes” Plenty of those all the time 5- “Persecutions and tortures to the elect aka Bill O’Reilly’s WAR ON CHRISTMAS 6- “Many will fall away… lawlessness… the love of many will grow cold” In other words apostasy. Over 50% of Americans’ don’t go to church, although this number doesn’t jive with the 70% believing in angels. 7- “This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed to the whole world” Oh the Evangeliscals declare Jesus is coming all the time. The end of the world? 8- There are another two signs in the Bible: The Jewish Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem, at Mount Moriah (Dan.8:11,Rev.11:2), and the “general apostasy” of 2Thes.2:3, which is the Abomination of Desolation. It is now the Time of the coming of the Antichrist?: The signs are getting ready… however, the Jewish Temple has not been rebuilt at Mount Moriah, where now stands the Muslim Mosque, the Golden Dome of the Rock. Unbelievable. What about the citizens of my hometown flocking to a window of the town hospital to see the miracle of condensation forming the face of Jesus? Like we have any idea about his looks. Beard or no beard. Tall or short. Skinny or fat. These uncertainties don’t stop Christians from seeing his face on a piece of toast which later sold on EBAY for $5000. Miracles. My fervent apostasy about Jesus has nothing to do with sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Of course being an atheist means I’m betting on nothingness for an after life, but if he’s waiting on the other side, I’ll be stunned at the pearly gates. Almost as stunned as to see the Portals of Hell. “But I believed when I was young.” TOO LATE And no fat assed cherubs are coming to rescue me. DOOMED With all the angels go-go dancing on a pin the size of Iowa Accordingly the old joke is Thailand is how many Thais can you fit on a bus? Answer: ten more.