"The existence of non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls "angel" is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture "is as clear as the unanimity of tradition (Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 85). ....the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels (ibid., p. 87).  "From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their (the angels) care and intercessions" (see MT 18:10; LK 16:22; Ps 34:7; 91:10-13, Job 33:23-24; Zech 1:12; Tob 12-12). "The church venerates the angels who help her on her earthly pilgrimage and protect every human being." p. 90.

Some few years ago, my daughter Barbara, ( I am a second-career vocation) was driving to Denver. It was mid-winter and she was in her brand new, yellow pick-up truck. It had been raining most of the afternoon but she wasn't terribly concerned; it didn't seem cold enough to freeze.

Since they were little kids, I had always taught my children to wear their seat belts. As soon as they entered the car, the first thing they were to do was to strap themselves in.

This time Barbara wasn't wearing it. It had been fastened somehow under the front seat. She stopped in the rain to try and free it once more but couldn't. 

As she crested a high hill, she lost control. The road going down was covered with "black ice"; the kind you can't see or feel until you're on top of it. 

The truck began a long slide off the road and rolled over and over down a steep embankment. It finally came to rest on its roof at the bottom of a ravine. 

As the vehicle had started to tumble, Barbara found herself held against the seat in a vice-like grip. When the vehicle at last came to rest she was terribly shaken and disoriented. She made her way out the window and spent three or four minutes calling out and circling the truck. She was trying to find the person who had held her so securely that she was not even bruised. 

Later the state police rescued her. The new truck was totaled but the person she was looking for, the person who had held her with such incredible strength, she never found. The only words she had heard during the roll-over were: "Hold the wheel, Hold it tight." 

Looking back, she knows now it were her Guardian Angel. I know it too. I can think of no other explanation. Her Guardian Angel saved Barbara's life! 

If you have a Guardian Angel story, please take some time, write it down and share it with us. 

PADRE PIO OFTEN CALLED UPON HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL AND TOLD US TO CALL UPON OUR GUARDIAN ANGELS WHEN WE NEEDED THEM. (EXPAND ON THIS). HE WAS ALSO VERY STRONG IN HIS BELIEF IN GIVING RELIEF TO SUFFERING SOULS. Padre Pio, our spiritual father and friend, was and still is so concerned with spiritual and corporal works of Mercy. 

The greatest of his many corporal works was his Home for the Relief of Suffering. It really was conceived in Padre's mind one evening in 1940. He was talking to some of his spiritual children with passionate sincerity about the need, the absolute necessity, of helping those who suffer with little, personal gifts of love: 

One single act of love, he said, on the part of man, one single act of charity is so great in God's eyes that he could not repay it even with the immense gift of the entire Creation! Love is the spark of God in man's soul, it is the very essence of God personified in the Holy Spirit!...our actions must be such that Our Lord may say to us: I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was suffering and you cared for me and comforted me."