Bulgakov on the Holy Guardian Angels

In this type of icon the guardian angel is shown holding and protecting the soul in his care

October 2 is the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, although this year (in 2022) it was supplanted by the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (or, in some places, the external solemnity of Our Lady of the Rosary). Each year I feel, more strongly than before, that we must turn our minds and hearts to our angel guardians and rekindle a warm devotion to these resplendent companions on our journey, persons to whom the Lord entrusts us from our conception onward, into, we hope, a joyous eternity of friendship. Indeed, we should consider consecrating ourselves to our guardian angels, as I explain here.

Readers of my recent work at NLM will be aware that I have a bit of a fascination with Sergius Bulgakov’s Spiritual Diary, recently translated into English for the first time and published by Angelico Press. Apart from a few stray anti-Roman comments, I found it a nourishing book to read, with many profound spiritual insights and (at times harrowing) accounts of the author’s spiritual struggles, which he seems to have “worked out” for himself through immersion in liturgical prayer—something I find entirely relatable and believable, as it has been my experience too over time.

I was particularly struck, reading it, at how often and how movingly Bulgakov’s mind turns to his guardian angel or to the angels in general. I have gathered the finest of these passages here for the reader’s edification.

The icons reflect a few of the different types that exist in the Byzantine tradition. It is rather difficult to find good images of guardian angels in Western art.

21.X.1924

Lord, here I begin a new day of your grace, a new page of life. Help me so that the day may not remain barren on account of my laziness, as has been true of most days of my life, and that it may not be covered over by my vile sins, both voluntary and involuntary, committed in knowledge and in ignorance,55 but grant that this day may be marked by even the smallest bit of service to You. Guard me and my dear friends through your holy angels on this day, shield them from every evil, grant it to all of them this day to fulfill Your will so that You may not repent, all-blessed Lord, that You gave us, unworthy as we are, this day of our life [cf. Gen. 6:6]. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. (82)

In this type of icon the guardian angel is shown with a cross in one hand and a sword in the other

11.XI.1924

We pray and appeal to our guardian angel. He is our friend, given to us by God, yet how faintly and weakly does our heart sense this friend, how little it gives thanks and how little it loves! If only our eyes could be opened, then we would constantly see him, the “guardian of our souls and bodies.” We would comprehend that, in those situations when—by some sort of confluence of circumstances—we were unexpectedly saved from deadly troubles or misfortunes, it was he who saved us, our luminous guardian. And when some good word or thought came into our hearts, it was he, our friend, who implanted this thought in us. Our entire life would appear to us not so lonely and gloomy as we see it, but as a life of two, a life with a loving, solicitous friend. Yes, our guardian angel has been appointed to us by God, but he is no superintendent; rather, he is a friend, he loves us, we are loved by him. And this is why, according to the Church’s pious belief, our angel “weeps” when we sin or perish, and he fights for us and with us (but only in the spiritual world) against the spirits who tempt us.

[…]

How can we open our hearts to our guardian angel, how can we come closer to him? By praying to him, thinking about him, reaching for him, by attending inwardly to that barely audible whisper that resounds in our hearts at the time of prayer and after it, in those blessed hours when prayer envelops us. For he is our “kind guide,” he guides us with open eyes while we walk blindly, for we do not know the world of spiritual beings that surrounds us, we do not know the beginning and the end of the path. Be attentive then and hearken to the secret whisper of your soul, for that is the voice of your guardian angel. (91)

Ask of God faith and patience. Ask of God a guardian angel for our souls and bodies. Know that without his help and protection we would be torn to pieces in body and soul by demons: the insanity of demoniacs and of Soviet rule is only a partial example of what demons wish to do to us due to their hatred of God, their hatred of God’s creation, their hatred of man. Before us would be revealed a world of dark powers (which we in our frivolity at times recklessly try to catch a glimpse of), all possible ailments would assault us, we would not last even one hour if we did not have an angel of peace, a faithful guide, a guardian of our souls and bodies. For the Apostle says that the devil, like a roaring beast, seeks whom he may devour [1 Pet. 5:8]. And can we really stand before him on our own strength without the constant protection of our guardian angel? (97)

In this type of icon the angel is shown holding the hand of and guiding his charge

31.I.1925

Holy guardian angel, pray to God for us! What joy, what cheer, what comfort it is to know that we have a guardian angel, a true and buoyant and good friend, and that we may call upon him in prayer. Immediately after praying the canon to one’s guardian angel, there is such a freshness and clarity in the soul, as if he—a true guide and friend—had brushed me with his wing, as if my soul had drunk from the cup of celestial beings. And somehow, my soul joyfully knows and believes that it is he, yes, he, that is with me and with all of us. What immeasurable joy there will be when our eyes are opened and we see the entirety of our life, and, through it all, our faithful companion, preserving us and our sweet loved ones from plunder, from being torn apart, from evil demons and from those who serve them; what immeasurable joy there will be when we discover this love for us (which we have done absolutely nothing—besides being neglectful—to merit) and discover this prayer that is uttered for us, together with the angelic doxology, before the throne of the Most High. (116)

10.II.1925

Holy guardian angel, pray to God for us. What comfort and strength we find in prayer to our guardian angel, to our friend who is always close and who belongs to us. We must at least once in our life see our guardian-friend, we must find him in prayer so that we may carry in our hearts the joy and hope he brings. What fear, but also what great joy, await us when we will come to know him face to face, to see him after we cross the threshold of this earthly life, when we depart from the flesh. How great a teacher and guide in this life we have in him, who knows our life, who has lived all of it with us, who has wept over our falling and rejoiced in our rising again. He knows how to teach us the first lessons we need for the new life that awaits us after the grave. Oh, we shall not be alone there, we shall not be abandoned. For no human friendship—not even the loftiest and most tender—can compare with this spiritual friendship: disinterested, not disdainful of our foulness and stubbornness, but conquering all things through love. Even here he is with us, he stands behind us, covering us with his wings. Holy angel, our guardian appointed by the Lord, pray to God for us! (119)

Western depictions, where they exist, tend to be of the last sort

The Participation of Women in the Priestly Work of Liturgy

It seems almost impossible these days to read anything coming from the Vatican without reading about desires to “increase women’s roles and responsibilities” in the Church. Yet somehow suppressed is the truth that there cannot possibly be, in any possible or actual universe, a higher role or responsibility for women than (1) to be mothers and (2) to pray, in some combination of the two, ranging from a wife and the mother of a family to a consecrated virgin and spiritual mother. I am all the more confident in saying this, in spite of not being a woman, because all of the best, holiest, wisest, and happiest women I have ever known agree with this view; in fact, they are the ones who taught it to me, much as Diotima taught Socrates.

As Bishop Athanasius Schneider says:

[The faithful Catholic women during Soviet times] would never have dared to touch the holy hosts with their fingers. They would refuse to even read a reading during Mass. My mother, for example…when she first went to the West, she was shocked, scandalised, to see women in the sanctuary during Holy Mass. The true power of the Christian and Catholic woman is the power to be the heart of the family, the domestic church, to have the privilege to be the first who gives nourishment to the body of the child and also to be the first who gives nourishment to the souls of the child, teaching it the first prayer and the first truths of the Catholic faith. The most prestigious and beautiful profession of a woman is to be mother, and especially to be a Catholic mother. (source)

No doubt Bishop Schneider would say, in accord with the traditional teaching of the Church, that the religious profession of a consecrated virgin exceeds even this most beautiful natural calling, for it is an especially lofty and pure reflection of the nature of the Church as Christ’s Immaculate Bride, and the fullest outpouring of faith and love for the heavenly Bridegroom. All this could be said to be John Paul II’s perspective as well, but of course he has been thrown under the bus by the feminists and their allies who now occupy the positions of authority.

My own views on the irreducibly distinct and complementary roles of men and women in the Church may be found in my book Ministers of Christ: Recovering the Roles of Clergy and Laity in an Age of Confusion, which is intended to be nothing other than a presentation and defense, in modern language, of traditional teaching and practice.
 

But it seems to me valuable to share a passage from the famous Eastern Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov, who paints an attractive picture of the necessary and valuable involvement of women in making and repairing items for the liturgy. The following is taken from The Spiritual Diary (pp. 132–33), an entry written on March 20, 1925.

How lovely are Your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord [Ps. 84:2–3 Douay-Rheims]. The lot of the priest—how joyful, how elect, for the sparrow has found herself a nest [Ps. 84:4].
          Though not all are priests, still the Lord allows those who are not to reach out and to touch the sanctuary and to rejoice in it. I behold women, old and young, making clerical vestments and veils for the holy mysteries of Christ, and my heart expands as I rejoice in their love, in the miracle of God’s mercy. Unceasingly created and continually traversed is the grace-bestowing ladder between earth and heaven [John 1:51]. This ladder is brought into being even now by timid and obedient fingers. For whatever is intended for the sanctuary is already holy by virtue of its purpose, it is holy in its consecration, and, after entering through the curtain of fire, is taken out of human hands to remain in consecrated hands alone, for in truth consecrated hands are no longer human (no matter how sinful or wretched my right hand may be, O Lord). And that which is sewn and woven in our daily, mundane life is already regenerated and sanctified in [priestly] hands and becomes a thing of another world, of the new heaven and new earth.
          The Lord has elected the most skilled and endowed them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the completion of their work for the tabernacle [cf. Ex. 31:1–6]. But this gift, having once come down for the elect, remains and is passed down even now in the Church. It rests even now on those who worthily and prayerfully complete this work.…
          Through them, a bridge is created between the sanctuary and the outer courts, a link by which angels ascend and descend from heaven to earth and back. And the woman who offers the Lord her love and her work is like the woman who bought the alabaster jar of expensive oil and poured it on the feet of the Savior and filled that home with fragrance; and the Lord said of this blessed woman that she hath wrought a good work.… Yes, may there also be a blessing for those women who do a good work today by offering a vial of the precious oil of love from their hearts [cf. Matt. 26:6–10].

These words bring to mind the many women over the years whom I have worked with or have heard of, who are sewing and repairing vestments, altar cloths, altar frontals, who are rinsing, washing, mending, doing all sorts of behind-the-scenes work without which the liturgy would not be fittingly offered. The Lord knows of their service and He will reward it.

I think about this YouTube channel, humbly entitled “Vestment Lady” (nowhere will you find out her name—she would not even use her name in our email correspondence): 

 

Or the many makers of fine vestments you can find with a minimum of searching, like Altarworthy or Traditional Vestments. And who can forget the charming pair of ladies featured in Mass of the Ages who continued to sew and repair traditional vestments all through the dark days of the 1970s when such vestments were being thrown away, and who were blessed by God with the sight of a burgeoning new demand for the same?

Indeed, even “those who are not priests” still “reach out and touch the sanctuary and rejoice in it” by the labors of their hands and by the love in their hearts. What is needed today is not a feminist advancement of laywomen into higher and higher bureaucratic posts or more and more semi-clerical occupations—the same is true, mutatis mutandis, of laymen—but a revolution of mentality, a metanoia, a putting on the mind of Christ, Who came not to be served but to serve, and Who gave Himself as a ransom for the many. This is the true model of the priesthood, both ordained and baptismal. It is a model that has become well-nigh indecipherable in the postconciliar period’s smoke and mirrors, culminating in the booby hatch of the Synod on Synodality. May we find our way once again to the humility of tradition by a future servus servorum Dei who does not subscribe to the utilitarian horizontalism and depersonalizing functionalism of the modern West.

Photos of the Guild of St Clare by Joseph Shaw.

Bulgakov on the Benefits of a “Tedious” Liturgical Prayer

Not long ago I was reading a fascinating book, Sergius Bulgakov’s Spiritual Diary—newly translated and published for the first time in English by Angelico Press—and found myself frequently nodding in agreeing with various points he had to make about life, the world, politics, and ecclesiastical matters. Written in 1924–25 in Prague, after Bulgakov had been exiled from Soviet Russia along with many other intellectuals, the diary offers a fascinating window on the interior struggles of a man who was longing for his fatherland and continually suffering from feelings of discouragement and confusion at the direction in which the world was going. (Sound familiar?)

In the midst of worldly troubles and personal woes, Fr. Bulgakov found a constant source of strength and peace in the Divine Liturgy, about which he speaks with glowing eloquence. I am reminded in this regard of Fr. Bryan Houghton, who closes his moving autobiography Unwanted Priest with the words: “You have in front of you a priest rejected because of the old Mass, but whom the old Mass alone keeps going.”

It was highly edifying to read Bulgakov’s defense of the need for commitment, persistence, and a certain ascetical violence to self when it comes to the rigors of prayer, including liturgical prayer. He says we will often be cold in soul and the only way we will ever warm up is by forcing ourselves to “go through the motions,” as if trying to let the body, the tongue, rule the soul, or steer the soul into its proper course. The presupposition, needless to say, is a rigorous course of prayer to follow, so that it becomes possible for the soul to awaken as it should.

Here are his words, written on May 6, 1924:

We must love the work of prayer and never slacken in it. People seek spiritual pleasures, and if grace ever shows its face to them, when it is taken away from them they languish and their soul grows cold. But the work of prayer—persistent, never slackening, tenacious—is the expression of our active love for God that strives to bind our sinful being and bring it to the altar. The Kingdom of God is taken by force [Matt. 11:12]. And this work never remains unjustified [cf. Matt. 11:19].
       At times you pray but the heart remains cold and callous, the tongue wooden. And yet, if you force yourself and make absolutely no concessions nor grant any indulgence to your laziness, after prayer the soul feels itself renewed, resilient, and strengthened.
       The same thing also happens when you attend church services and the experience is accompanied by a certain coldness; after this too do you feel yourself strengthened. Therefore, work, brothers, and even you, wicked servant [Matt. 25:26], work. For work is love, and the one who does not work and is lazy in love—his heart is cold. (58)

How different is this from the attitude of the liturgical reformers! They would solve the “problem” of modern man’s difficulty with prayer by shortening, simplifying, easing up the prayer, making it less painful, less demanding, less “worky,” to use a favorite expression of a dear college student I once knew. How foolish and myopic. One must make “absolutely no concessions nor grant any indulgence to laziness.” This is the ascetic way that leads through dryness and lack of desire to the warmth of love, tears, and contemplation. The Eastern tradition has never forgotten this. Why has the Western? Although traditional Latin enclaves are certainly many steps ahead in this regard, one still notices some cutting of corners. There are some who avoid the High Mass because it is too long and demanding; others who never pray part of the Divine Office (e.g., Vespers, which was once nearly as common as Mass). In traditional circles, rather than priding ourselves on the great good we have in the Tridentine liturgy, we should be finding ways to live still more fully a life of prayer centered on it but not limited to it.
 

The same book contains an appendix called Remembering Fr. Sergius, written by his long-time friend Sr. Joanna Reitlinger. In a wonderful passage she shares her recollections of Bulgakov’s attitudes about the Lenten Tridion and repetitious prayer.

Having been brought up in the church from childhood, Fr. S. grew up organically together with its life. While still a little boy—as he used to tell the story—he anxiously awaited when they would sing the canon, “Beneath the waves of the sea” and was afraid to miss it. This sacred and almost childlike attitude towards all the services of Holy Week remained with him for his entire life. While there was much that he criticized about the archaisms and rhetoric of our canons (especially those for the commemoration of certain saints, which were written without any inspiration), the services of Holy Week he singled out and considered particularly inspired. Not long before his final illness he once again recalled with enthusiasm: “‘O Lord, the woman fallen into many sins perceived your Divinity’—Exactly so!”

Note: he criticized these things in private, but he never sought to change them. He accepted them as part of the cycle of public prayer, with its peaks and troughs, its moments of sublime inspiration and its more humdrum business. Sr. Reitlinger continues:

He likewise highlighted not so much the intrinsically tedious content of our services’ interminable repetitions as much as the atmosphere they would create—especially our services at the St. Sergius Representation Church—during the first week of the fast [Great Lent]. Although these services greatly wore him down, he would return from church as if from a long journey in unknown lands, having scaled the great heights of the spirit, and would say that the soul in this season breathes the particularly rarified air of these heights. And thus even this private critique of these services in their particulars, which was entirely justified, became somewhat discordant, especially later in his life, with these feelings of his. He recommended treating these Holy Week services with even some superstitious fear: “do not skip them.”
       But many of our prayers seemed to him burdensome, archaic, unmodern. This was especially true of the rule of prayer for preparation for Holy Communion. We often spoke about this, how burdensome it was and how it did not correspond to our feelings and thoughts before the holy mystery of Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ. Despite this, he never allowed himself any sloppiness or nihilism toward the “rule” and recited it strictly. At the end of his life, when he was very weak, he almost always read them while sitting at his writing desk.
       As for the archaic canon of Andrew of Crete, he liked to poke fun at it; but as I mentioned earlier, he valued the atmosphere it created, as he valued the entire atmosphere of the first week of the fast. He even tried to define what the “magic” of this rhythm consisted of, locating it in the mysterious repetition of “Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me,” in the mysterious sighs of repentance. (175–76)

Here, then, we see a man of immense learning who totally dedicated himself to liturgical prayer as it concretely existed, not as he might have privately wished it could be. Not for him a Consilium to turn everything inside-out and upside-down. Rather, he valued the spiritual fruit derived from even what seemed, to the flesh, wearisome repetition. The idea that there is “useless repetition” in the liturgy—a view that could be held with far greater reason of the Greek and Slavic liturgical rites!—would have struck him as verging on blasphemy. He knew that the Church’s prayer was too sacred, too strong, too far beyond the realm of the individual, to dare allow oneself “any sloppiness or nihilism.” He did what was written as to be done, even to his final days.

Such reflections could likewise be of benefit to those who pray the (traditional Latin) Divine Office (or any other lengthy liturgical ceremony) and who may find that its repetitions may sometimes feel “tedious or interminable.” There is a way to deal with such thoughts and feelings. It is the way we see in Bulgakov, not the way we see in Bugnini. In fact, I have no hesitation in saying the former was far more Catholic in mentality than the latter.

Prostration during the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete