guide. Young Tobias went out and
found a beautiful young man to be his guide and he consented, and he
brought Tobias to the distant city. As they were on their way they sat
down by the bank of a river. Tobias went into the water near the edge,
and soon a great fish rushed at him. Tobias called to his guide. The
guide told him to take hold of the fish and drag it out upon the shore.
There they killed it, and kept part of its flesh for food and part for
medicine. Then they went on to the city, got the money and returned. The
guide told young Tobias to rub the part of the fish he had taken for
medicine upon his father's eyes. He did so, and immediately his father's
eyes were cured and he saw. Then both the father and son were so
delighted with this young guide, that they offered to give him half of
all they had. He refused to take it and then told them he was the angel
Raphael sent from God to be the guide of this good man's son. He told
the old Tobias how he (the angel) had carried up to God his prayers and
good works while he was burying the dead. When they heard he was an
angel they fell down and reverenced him, being very much afraid. From
this beautiful history we know that the angels carry our prayers and
good works to God. Again we learn from the Holy Scripture (Gen. 28) in
the history of another good man almost the same thing. The patriarch
Jacob was on a journey, and being tired, he lay down to rest with his
head upon a stone. As he lay there he had a vision in which he saw a
great ladder reaching up from earth to Heaven. At the top he saw
Almighty God standing, and on the ladder itself angels ascending and
descending. Now the holy Fathers of the Church tell us this is what is
really taking place; the angels are always going down and up from God to
man, though not on a ladder and not visibly as they appeared to Jacob.
Besides the guardian angel for each person, there are also guardian
angels for each city and for each nation.

Again (Gen. 19) angels appeared to Lot to warn him about the destruction
of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrha. Angels appeared also to the
shepherds on the night Our Lord was born (Luke 2). The catechism says
angels have no bodies--how, then, could they appear? They took bodies
made of some very light substance which would make them visible, and
appeared just like beautiful young men, clad in flowing garments, as you
frequently see them represented in pictures. Angels were sometimes sen