Fulton Sheen, Angels and a Child's Imagination: An Art Reflection
The absolute awe I felt as a kid watching Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s chalkboard get wiped clean by his Guardian Angel, just off-camera, was Disney-level entertainment. On his incredibly popular television show, Life Is Worth Living, Archbishop Sheen would use a chalkboard to write out or diagram the theological gold he was dishing out on screen. Naturally, the board would eventually fill up. He would walk away from it, and when he returned, it had mysteriously been wiped clean by his angel! How magical?
As an adult, I am fully aware that it was a studio member doing the wiping, but that doesn’t mean angels, guardian angels, powers and principalities aren’t real! Not only are they real, but Scripture provides ample evidence for them, and the Church has taught about their presence and ministry from the beginning. Angels appear throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, appearing as God's messengers, servants, protectors and worshipers. And yet I believe they are not top of mind for the general Catholic population. Is it that we become too old for angels? Why do we tend to write them off as though they were fairies we no longer believe in? What a loss it is not to consider them throughout our day.
While you may not see many paintings of angels in contemporary art galleries, these celestial beings have been a beloved theme in art for centuries. Abbott Handerson Thayer was an American academic and Symbolist painter. He placed a strong emphasis on idealism and allegory and was fascinated by the natural world, seeing the beauty of the human form as a powerful vehicle for expressing spiritual and transcendent ideas.
Often using his wife and children as models, he preferred to depict angels in quiet moments integrated with nature rather than in elaborate biblical scenes. In An Angel (1893), we see before us a simple angel, perhaps lit by the light of God, walking in the direction of a mission. Her flushed face contrasts with the complete peace of her expression as she sets out. If you look closely, you can see that her left hand has just brushed past her dress, creating a sense of movement that carries into the paint itself.
The fact that parts of this painting appear unfinished only reinforces the figure's otherworldly quality. Angels, after all, are incorporeal beings; Thayer’s unfinished passages almost seem to acknowledge that we are trying to give visible form to something that is, by nature, invisible.
Walking through the Milwaukee Art Museum, not knowing this painting was there, was such a delightful surprise. I knew of Thayer’s work and had always wanted to see one of his angels. I rounded a corner, and there she was — in all her clear, simple, natural glory.
The colors were shocking in person. That blue is much colder than it appears in reproductions, and the warmth of her face and clothing is so much more evident. I stood there for some time just soaking it all in.
Being confronted by an angel in a gallery room filled with everyday themes connected me to a part of myself that had grown dull with age. You could call it childhood, but that doesn’t mean it is make-believe. Magic and power exist in this world that we cannot see with our eyes, and when we are reminded of that otherworld, something in us awakens. It is the same thing that was stirred in the heart of that little girl sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, watching Archbishop Fulton Sheen on the television. It was wonder and awe, and those two things do not have an age limit on them.
Perhaps that is why the Church gives us these feast days — to remind us that the unseen world is not imaginary, and that we are never as alone as we sometimes feel. September 29 is the feast of the Archangels St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael. While this October we will all be focusing on St. Francis during his jubilee year, let’s pause at the beginning of the month, on October 2, the feast of the Guardian Angels, and remember to pray to our heavenly friends and ask them to intercede for us.
Ask God to place a little more wonder and awe in your heart. He will do it. And if you need help, take a look at the Church’s rich history of angels in art. Spend some time with the images that inspire you most and let them draw your mind toward the reality they represent. These images are part of our tradition, handed down to us to help lift our eyes beyond what we can see.
