Do angels still walk among us? There are verses that speak about entertaining angels, are they real and visible today? What do they look like?
Today I met an angel named Patrick. He was on a park bench outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. His grey hair and green eyes made for a kind face that I will keep a picture of in my heart.
When team mate Holly and I first walked past him he was mumbling to himself. It reminded me of a war vet lost in time talking to another person in a situation of the past. He seemed lost; not in this present time. The can of beer in his hand just added to the hook that caught hold of me and led me to go speak to him.
Through his rocking and hiccups he was able to tell us a little about the history of the area and where some other churched were for us to go see. One church he gave me the directions to 4 or 5 times as if he hadn’t before.
He spoke of his parents who had died and how I had the same name as his mother. He seemed lost in that time and aimless without them. He had never married or had children; his two brothers lived back in England, so he was alone.
My heart broke as I spoke with him.
As Holly and I got up to leave we told him we would keep him in our prayers. We only walked a few seconds away when Holly decided to go back and pray for him in person. We turned around and he was gone. Just in those seconds there was nowhere for him to have walked. We thought the moment had been lost and prayed for Pat anyway as we walked into the Cathedral. We told each other that if he was there when we came out that we wouldn’t hesitate and would go pray with him. God heard us and Pat was back on his bench as we came out and we were able to go over to him again and pray for him.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'”… “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'” – Matthew 25:34-40
“Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.” – Hebrews 13: 1-2
