Things Your Guardian Angel Can and Can’t Do · AfterMass · Radar

What Guardian Angels Know1:37 – 7:08

1:37

So can your guardian angel read your mind? No, this one surprises people because the common assumption is that, you know, the guardian angel, the spirit assigned to guard you has full access to your inner life, watching every private thought scroll by.

1:50

St. Thomas Aquinas actually addressed this directly in the Summa.

1:54

Angels, side note, the Summa, very difficult to read through if you just kind of pick it up and read it cover to cover.

2:02

There's an amazing podcast, I'm going to put it here, by a very dear friend of mine, Austin Habish, who is joining the, he's going into seminary actually this month, August.

2:13

And he broke down.

2:14

So he did, you know, Bible in a year and Catechism in a year? Well, he did the Summa in a year.

2:18

So I will leave a link below.

2:20

Not sponsored, guys.

2:21

I just genuinely love his work.

2:23

So I will leave that below.

2:24

You can listen to it on Spotify, and I believe it's also on YouTube, but really, really great.

2:28

So back to the question.

2:30

So St. Thomas Aquinas did address this in the Summa.

2:33

Angels know things by natural intelligence far beyond ours, so they can read your face and your body and your patterns the way that a very skilled doctor reads a patient without being told the diagnosis.

2:45

Your private thoughts belong to you and God alone, and scripture backs this up.

2:49

Only God searches the heart and knows the mind.

2:52

That is in Jeremiah 17:10.

2:54

And it's repeated enough times in the Old Testament that theologians treat it as a pretty much settled claim.

3:00

Your angel can guess, and it's good at guessing because it's watched your whole life and knows your triggers better than your mother does, but it just can't read your thoughts before you think it.

3:10

Okay? Next one.

3:12

Can it see dreams? This one is murkier than when we were talking, when I was talking about it with my friend.

3:18

Um, it's difficult to explain, but the answer is murky, and murky is different from no.

3:24

Angels do not have bodies, so they don't see the way that you would see a movie playing inside your head.

3:32

But several doctors of the church, including Aquinas again, held that angels can act on the imagination, so the part of the mind that produces those mental images, because imagination works through physical processes in the brain, and angels can influence physical things.

3:47

So that means an angel could, in theory, shape what you dream, plant an image, nudge a scenario, and this is actually how the church explains some prophetic dreams in scripture, like the dreams given to Joseph, the husband of Mary.

What Guardian Angels Know1:37 – 7:08

1:37

So can your guardian angel read your mind? No, this one surprises people because the common assumption is that, you know, the guardian angel, the spirit assigned to guard you has full access to your inner life, watching every private thought scroll by.

1:50

St. Thomas Aquinas actually addressed this directly in the Summa.

1:54

Angels, side note, the Summa, very difficult to read through if you just kind of pick it up and read it cover to cover.

2:02

There's an amazing podcast, I'm going to put it here, by a very dear friend of mine, Austin Habish, who is joining the, he's going into seminary actually this month, August.

2:13

And he broke down.

2:14

So he did, you know, Bible in a year and Catechism in a year? Well, he did the Summa in a year.

2:18

So I will leave a link below.

2:20

Not sponsored, guys.

2:21

I just genuinely love his work.

2:23

So I will leave that below.

2:24

You can listen to it on Spotify, and I believe it's also on YouTube, but really, really great.

2:28

So back to the question.

2:30

So St. Thomas Aquinas did address this in the Summa.

2:33

Angels know things by natural intelligence far beyond ours, so they can read your face and your body and your patterns the way that a very skilled doctor reads a patient without being told the diagnosis.

2:45

Your private thoughts belong to you and God alone, and scripture backs this up.

2:49

Only God searches the heart and knows the mind.

2:52

That is in Jeremiah 17:10.

2:54

And it's repeated enough times in the Old Testament that theologians treat it as a pretty much settled claim.

3:00

Your angel can guess, and it's good at guessing because it's watched your whole life and knows your triggers better than your mother does, but it just can't read your thoughts before you think it.

3:10

Okay? Next one.

3:12

Can it see dreams? This one is murkier than when we were talking, when I was talking about it with my friend.

3:18

Um, it's difficult to explain, but the answer is murky, and murky is different from no.

3:24

Angels do not have bodies, so they don't see the way that you would see a movie playing inside your head.

3:32

But several doctors of the church, including Aquinas again, held that angels can act on the imagination, so the part of the mind that produces those mental images, because imagination works through physical processes in the brain, and angels can influence physical things.

3:47

So that means an angel could, in theory, shape what you dream, plant an image, nudge a scenario, and this is actually how the church explains some prophetic dreams in scripture, like the dreams given to Joseph, the husband of Mary.