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Voices Online Edition
Advent/Christmas 2002
Volume XVII, No. 4

Letters to the Editor

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Letters to the Editor are not published online. Below is a sample of a letter received. For information on receiving Voices, please see the Join Page.

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About Letters ... We are very glad to get your letters, and we read each one. We print as many as we can, and give preference to those of widest interest. All published letters may be edited. Please include your name and address (which may be withheld on request). If your letter is not intended for publication, please tell us. Letters may also be e-mailed.

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Sample Letter to the Editor and Editor's response:

Letter to the Editor

Guardian Angels
Several years ago, when my father was in a nursing home and could not even remember that his son had just visited him, he could still recite his prayers. I was astounded by the beauty of the prayer he said following his recital of the traditional "Prayer to the Guardian Angel".

I found it, years later, in a prayer book, Catholic Girls' Guide (p. 600) by Father F.X. Lasance, which is identical to the one my mother had re-covered in white to carry at her wedding. (This book is still available through some homeschool publishers, etc. and was last published in 1955 by Benziger Brothers.)

I thought that, since you respect the beauty of the traditions of the Church, you may want to file it for use in some future October issue. We pluralized the words relating to the angels since, in our family, we pray for each other's angels to be on watch daily.

Prayer to our Guardian Angels
Angels of God,
our guardians dear,
To whom God's love
commits us here,
Ever this day (or night)
be at our sides,
To light and guard,
to rule and guide. Amen.
Let us pray.
Almighty and eternal God, Who in the counsel of Thy unspeakable goodness, hast appointed to all the faithful a special angel guardian of body and soul:
Grant that we may so love and honor them whom Thou hast so mercifully given us, that, protected by the bounty of Thy grace, and by their assistance, we may merit to behold, with them and all the angelic host, the glory of Thy countenance in the heavenly country. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.

Mary Catherine O'Neill
via e-mail

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Response

Thanks for sending this lovely prayer. Catholic children are still learning the "Guardian Angel Prayer" as one of their very first prayers. Here is the classic version:

Angel of God, my Guardian dear,
to whom His love commits me here,
Ever this day be at my side
to light and guard, to rule and guide, Amen.

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