The Language of Angels

Do Angels speak and manifest their thoughts to others? It would indeed be inconceivable that such a vast multitude of pure spirits endowed with superior intelligence and an abundance of dear ideas should lack the means of communicating among themselves. Saint Paul speaks of such things as "the tongues of Angels." From Sacred Scripture we learn that Angels do talk with one another;[5] they talk to men every time they are sent as God's messengers into this world. The examples are too many and too obvious: The Archangel Raphael and Tobias, Gabriel the Archangel and Saint Zachary and the Blessed Virgin Mary; an Angel spoke to Saint Peter,[6] etc. If they talk and they sing in a manner and a voice that is not their own, how much more must they be able to talk and sing in the language of the spirits. At the birth of Christ, the heavenly messenger of joy and of great tidings, an Angel of God announced the nativity of the Savior of the world to a few shepherds in the hill country around Bethlehem. Messengers had come down to earth many times since man's creation, to advise, to warn, to help, or to punish man. On this occasion "a multitude of the heavenly army" was heard for the first time singing, caroling, and praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will." Only the Angelic mind could well understand the mystery of the Incarnation, and the great honor and dignity that had come to poor human nature when the Son of God, the Eternal Word, assumed and substantially united it to His Divine Person for all eternity.
The fact that Angels possess a language of their own is beyond all doubt; the nature of that language, however, is little known to us. When the Angels appear to men, a human language is spoken by them, the one spoken by the addressee. The sound of human voice is produced, and human words are spoken when the Angelic apparition is a sensible one; only mental words, the conveying of ideas, are used in cases of imaginative or intellectual visions.
Among themselves the Angels do not converse in any human language, by words of mouth, being incorporeal and immaterial. What is their language then? Of several theories excogitated by the Schoolmen to explain the language of the Angels the one proposed by Saint Thomas seems to be the most acceptable. Saint Thomas holds that the Angels talk to each other by a mere act of the will, opening their mind and revealing whatever ideas they wish to convey to others of the same nature as themselves. This Angelic language, or conversation, is called illumination. Dionysius refers to this mode of speaking where he writes: "The lower orders of the Celestial Beings (the Angels) receive the understanding of the Divine works from those above them in a fitting manner, and the highest are correspondingly enlightened in the Divine Mysteries by the Most High God Himself. For some of them are shown to us enlightened in holy matters by those above them."[7] Dionysius applies to the Angels of higher and lower ranks those questions and replies of Psalm 23, which describe Christ's triumphant ascension into heaven. Some of the Angels are depicted there asking: "Who is this King of glory?" Spirits of the higher Choirs of Angels answer: "The Lord who is strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." Some more Angels ask the same question: "Who is this King of glory?" And the higher Angels reply: "The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory." "Some of them," writes Dionysius, "are shown to us enlightened in holy matters by those above them, and [thus] we learn that He who in human form ascended to heaven is Lord of the Celestial Powers and King of glory."[8]
"They [the Angels] need neither tongue nor ears but without the help of any spoken word they exchange with each other their thoughts and their counsels."[9] This form of expression, the Angelic language, may seem perhaps too faint and indistinct to us who are used to material sound and words of mouth; it is however much stronger, clearer, and more perfect than any human language, even when this is used by the most learned and experienced of men. Our words of mouth are no more than symbols of the ideas we have in our mind and wish to manifest to others. Symbols and words are very often inadequate in expressing the full thought, or they are ambiguous or not well understood by the hearer. To be able to open one's mind and reveal the whole thought, as it is there, without the channel of symbolism, sound, and words, is a higher and better form of expression. Such is the wordless exchange of ideas, the language of the Angels.
Just as, by God's permission or command, the Angels are able to assume human forms when appearing to men, so, too, they are permitted to produce a human voice and speak our human language, as all reported Angelic apparitions reveal. By the same Divine permission and in virtue of their natural powers, the Angels are able to produce what to human ears sounds like sweet melody or enchanting music, as we learn from the lives of several of God's servants about whom we shall report later.
The fact of Angelic illumination implies difference of knowledge and ideas between one Angel and another. This difference is determined by the special degree of perfection of each individual Angel. Since no two Angels are exactly alike, it follows that their power of understanding and their amount of knowledge differ accordingly. Angelic illumination is needed not only for acquiring new natural ideas but also, and especially, for the supernatural knowledge of the mysteries of God. Here an Angel of the higher ranks, having received more light from God on such mysteries, passes that knowledge along to Angels of lower ranks adjusting himself to their more limited capacity. Saint Paul implies that the Angels can be enlightened on such mysteries even through the Church and human preaching: "To me, the least of all saints is given this grace to preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all men . . . that the manifold wisdom of God may be made known to Principalities and Powers in heavenly places through the church."[10]
By opening his mind in light, an Angel is able to reveal not only his thoughts but also his affections, his desires, his joy, his gratitude, his happiness. Such manifestations are immensely more perfect, more beautiful, and convincing than any corresponding human expression. They are a blessed irradiation of whatever sentiment is being expressed. "The first Order of the Celestial Beings," writes Dionysius, "which are established about God, immediately encircling Him, in perpetual purity they encompass His eternal knowledge in that most sublime and eternal Angelic dance, rapt in the bliss of manifold blessed contemplations, and irradiated with pure and primal splendors."[11]