I Believe in Angels...

cue Abba: "I have a dream"

Fr. Matt preached a wonderful sermon this morning, based on the Propers for this, the 15th Sunday after Pentecost.

Hebrews 13, 1-8 "....show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."

He asked, "Do any of you believe in angels?"  

First, I heard Abba singing and then I thought of my paternal grandmother, Anna Louise Trevoy Stephenson, who died in October of 1905, just ten days after giving birth to her first child, my father.

Since he didn't ever know her, even less did we know her.  However, we did have a picture of her.  It was an enlarged photograph which had been colored and framed.  



As many of you know, my little brother, Royce Stephenson, was born severely handicapped with Cerebral Palsy, very smart but relatively unable to do anything for himself.  As a youngster he saw this big old picture and asked to have it on the wall visible from his bed.  Years and moves went by and "Grandma Stephenson" went wherever he did.  

As mother aged and care for Royce was tranferred to Sunshine Haven Nursing Home in Lordsburg, NM., he was extremely insistent that the picture be hung there as well.

I'd never paid much attention to it but eventually he and I talked about it, me out loud, him with his talking board.  Turns out he was very sure that she was his.  She was his Guardian Angel and while he lived somewhere on this earth, by golly, she was going to be there too.  

He said she comforted and encouraged him.  

I think his going to Heaven was a perfect opportunity for them to get better acquainted.  

Therefore, had we been called upon to raise our hands if we believed in angels, I would have raised mine.