Saved by an angel? Baltimore Catholics recall life‑changing moments

Stas Chrzanowski Jr. was driving home from a U.S. Air Force base in Arizona a half century ago when he tried to pass a slow-moving tanker truck on a back road.

Accompanied by his wife and five sleeping children, the young military man was suddenly aghast to see another truck barreling toward him straight ahead. With the tanker to his right and woods to his left, there was nowhere to go.

“At the last minute – I swear to God – out of nowhere a road appeared,” remembered ­Chrzanowski, an 81-year-old parishioner of St. Casimir in Canton. “I pulled out on that road and hit the brakes while the two trucks passed each other with their horns still blowing.”

A stunned Chrzanowski looked at his crying wife.

“We both knew that something (miraculous) just happened to save our lives,” he said. “I tell you – and I swear on my grave – that road was not there. It appeared out of nowhere. Now who did it?”

To Chrzanowski, the answer has always been clear. He believes he was rescued by divine intervention – most likely by his guardian angel. In fact, he said, each person in the car must have had one.

“I’ve always believed in angels,” said Chrzanowski, who refers to his guardian angel as both “Sam” and “Samantha” since angels are without gender.

The experience taught him two lessons: that a power greater than himself was watching over his family members and that God had plans for each of them.

“People all over the world have things happen to them that they can’t explain,” he said. “But they don’t attribute it to a higher power or to angels or something like that. I believe they are angels.”

Chrzanowski’s conviction is widely shared. Across the country – and across faiths – millions of Americans say they believe in unseen protectors who watch, warn and sometimes intervene. A 2023 Associated Press-NORC poll found that about seven in 10 U.S. adults believe in angels.

Dr. Matthew Dugandzic, academic dean and associate professor of moral theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Roland Park, noted that most Catholic teaching on angels comes from Scripture and theologians such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Aquinas wrote so extensively about angels and in such an intellectually vigorous way that he is known as the “Angelic Doctor.”

“An angel is a created spiritual being,” said Dugandzic, a parishioner of Mount Calvary Catholic Church in Baltimore. “An angel does not have a body, so that’s what makes him spiritual.”

The word “angel” comes from the Greek “angelos,” meaning “one who is sent.” Angels serve as messengers and instruments of God, he said, appearing in Scripture to guide, test or simply sing God’s praises.

“Aquinas thinks angels are made, like everything else is made, to show forth the greater glory of God,” Dugandzic said.

Though some may perceive angels as inherently good, the Catholic Church teaches that there are also fallen angels – evil spiritual beings that reject God.

“Angels are creatures endowed with intellects and will just like we are and so they are able to choose evil and some of them did – and those are the ones who become the devil and his demons,” Dugandzic explained.

The Bible shares many stories of encounters between angels and humanity, among them the angel Gabriel’s appearance to the Blessed Virgin Mary to ask her if she would consent to becoming the Mother of God and the shepherds’ encounter with a heavenly host of angels that sang of God’s glory.

“God likes to work with his creatures,” Dugandzic said. “Everything that you see an angel doing in the Bible is something that God could have done himself. But he sent an angel to do it.”

Aquinas taught that angels outnumber humans and that each angel is a unique kind of being. Humans differ by body and circumstance, but angels, lacking bodies, differ by essence. Higher angels grasp God’s truth directly and share it with lower ones in a flawless hierarchy – a model of perfect harmony unlike any human system, Dugandzic said.

According to Augustine and Aquinas, creation ascends in a chain – from rocks to trees to animals to humans and finally to angels.

“As much as you differ in your intellectual powers from an animal, that’s the same jump from you to an angel,” Dugandzic said. “If an angel thinks of a triangle, it not only thinks of the definition of a triangle, but it thinks of every possible triangle that could possibly exist all at once.”

Those powerful intellects, according to Catholic tradition, are not distant observers. The church teaches that God assigns each person a guardian angel from birth, a companion for life’s journey.

Christian Radgowski, a 54-year-old parishioner of St. Casimir, knows the power of angelic presence. In 2011, after losing his job of eight years, he struggled to stay afloat.

“I was scraping together change in the back of my Jeep,” he recalled.

One night, after falling asleep in anguish, he dreamed of scenes from his life – and in each appeared his guardian angel, “Annie,” with long, curly red hair.

“She put her hand on my shoulder and told me she was my guardian angel and she was right there and was always going to be with me my entire life no matter where I am,” he said.

When he awoke, indelible peace replaced his anxiety.

“I had never felt so rested, so peaceful, so taken care of, so loved in my life,” said Radgowski, who went on to find employment. “I think it was God’s way of showing me something that I needed to see and feel. And I know it wasn’t a dream. It was an experience that happened while I was asleep.”

Chrzanowski, too, recalls smaller signs of angelic help. As a struggling freshman at Loyola Blakefield in Towson, he was haunted by a nun’s prediction that he would never succeed at the demanding Jesuit high school. He prayed to his guardian angel for help with Latin, the class he was about to flunk.

The next day, school officials passed out special mugs purchased by the parents of students the night before. Chrzanowski unexpectedly received one from his father, a man not given to such gestures.

“Never in a million years would my father buy me that mug,” he said. “And he did! Something nudged my father to buy me that mug.”

To Chrzanowski, it was confirmation his guardian angel had heard his prayer. He passed Latin (with a lot of extra study), graduated from high school and Loyola University Maryland, and served three years in the U.S. Air Force and two decades in the Army – including six years flying helicopters – retiring in 1990 as a lieutenant colonel before working at Lockheed Martin. He still has the mug.

Chrzanowski and Radgowski know some may doubt their experiences. But doubt, they would argue, doesn’t diminish truth.

“I know angels are real and I know they are among us,” Chrzanowski said. “I thank angels every day.”

Also see: No, Grandma is not an angel

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org

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