“In the hospital, especially during the pandemic, although the patients were alone, you could feel a lot of peace, and that is because of the guardian angels”; These are the words of Fr. Iñaki Gallego, one of the chaplains of the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid (Spain).
The priest, also parish priest of Santa María de Silencio -a parish for the deaf and deafblind-, and chaplain of the Santísimo Sacramento school in Madrid, shares the importance of the guardian angel in the last moments of earthly life.
“There are some more common cases, where the person is older and even wants to go to heaven, but there are also harder cases with children, young people or people who die alone.”
However, the priest explained that the sick are never alone since they have the company of the guardian angel, who is “in the toughest life situations.”
“God is a Father and wants us to die in peace, that’s why he sends us his guardian angels, who give peace in the last moments,” explained the priest.
He also pointed out that the family, priests, and doctors “are also a kind of angels” that accompany the sick, that’s why guardian angels are usually next to the one who is alone, the sick person who has no one to hold on to.
“The guardian angel knows when he has to be by our side. He knows how to withdraw and place when necessary, ”he explained.
Fr. Iñaki said that there are about 800 patients in the hospital, where the presence of the guardian angel is felt “in the toughest situations.”
“The guardian angel also accompanies doctors, nurses, priests and volunteers. They take us to places and people that we did not expect. I always end up at a necessary moment in the right place, near a sick person who just needed a priest, ”he pointed out.
“God does it through our guardian angels, he takes us to the places where he needs us without having planned it.”
Fr. Iñaki highlights that there are many occasions in which the patient prolongs his agony because he is waiting for someone from his family and the help of a priest. “Many times they have called us because it is known that the person is waiting for something. We approach that person, we give them the Anointing and in a few minutes they die in peace”.
“That has happened to us many times, and the guardian angels are the ones who make it possible,” defended the priest.
“The guardian angel has to give us peace just like Christ in the garden of olive trees. In the pandemic, the sick were so alone that we did what we could. There were many isolated sick people but still, there was peace in the midst of so much suffering, ”he explained.
“You have peace of knowing that that person is not going to die without comfort, as long as the angel is by his side. It is one of the ways that God has to reach people who are alone. Also, the angels are now with those who suffer from the war in Ukraine.
In addition, he defended that “the angel is there even if he is not called”, although also “we must ask the Lord to take care of us if we are scared, and God will do everything possible to help you. He gives meaning to our anguish and makes us live suffering from transcendence and give it a salvific meaning”.
He also explained that “ God does not bypass man’s freedom. Knowing that we are going to make a mistake, he warns us and tells us, but he never puts chains on us. That’s why angels can’t help when you really don’t want to.”
“But God is the only one who can judge us and the only one who really knows us. If you speak and also ask the Virgin Mary, she will intercede so that her son sends the angels to take care of you, “she defended.
“It is the Father who is in charge of sending you help and he does it thanks to the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. With the guardian angels, his help becomes physical, bringing peace to the sick or to those who need it, ”concluded the priest.