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As a bishop he continued to place great importance on visiting an one person he visited regularly was an old woman who lived in a woodland. He also visited prisoners and he met one prisoner who told him that once he had followed the Bishop as he went to visit the old lady with the intention of robbing him. 'But,' he said, 'though you always went alone, on that day you had a companion with you, so I didn't rob you.'
Bishop King shook his head, 'I always went alone,' he said, and then he smiled. 'That would be my guardian angel watching over me.'
We might say that is a fanciful notion because not every Christian believes in the existence of angels, even though the Scriptures refer to angels a great deal and name four Archangels Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael and, of course, Michael, who contended for God in the Book of Revelation when he waged war on God's enemy, Satan, and promised to guard and defend God's creation from the wiles of the devil.
The word Angel comes from a Greek word meaning messenger and the angels do God's bidding as his servants linking heaven to earth. Gabriel is, of course, the most famous messenger who came to Mary with God's announcement that she would become Christ-bearer. There is also a view that angels carry back to God our prayers and so are always near to us, especially during the Eucharist when we pray that we are linked with the whole company of heaven.
'Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we proclaim you great and glorious name.' If we don't believe angels exist, I wonder what we think as we hear those words. In the Creed we say that God is maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen, which reminds us that God creates far more than we can see on earth, and which we can only see with the eyes of faith. Like angels!
Francis Thompson, in his poem, In No Strange Land, wrote:
The angels keep their ancient places; -
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many splendoured thing.
Personally, with Edward King, I am delighted to
know the presence and care of the many-splendoured
angels because I need all the help I can get!Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many splendoured thing.
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