At Certain Sacred Times

At certain sacred times
God has sent forth His angels
To instruct and minister
His chosen, pure, and faithful

Adam was taught the atonement
Mary... of whom she would carry
The shepherds were given the announcement
These visits were extraordinary

One came unto the Savior
That night in Gethsemane
To offer heaven's comfort
The most significant visit of any...

Angels have come to our day
To restore God's good news again
Unto a book, one showed the way
As prophets of old, too, did descend

At history's crowning events
Is it any wonder...
Angels were found present
To proclaim that for which we hunger

Imagine the sleeping Elijah
Despairing to live no longer
Receiving comfort in trial
Unto becoming faithfully stronger

Imagine 12 Apostles
Standing together in a circle
Fatigued in a foreign land
Too exhausted for the next hurtle...

Imagine the prophet, Brigham Young
Traveling through a desert place
Speaking in an unknown tongue
To those hostile before his face

Imagine being surrounded
By an ominous and angry army
And having your eyes faith opened
Unto horses and chariots of fire sent for disarming

Imagine angels blessing
Those quite ordinary
The weak and distressing
Assisting them to daily tarry

Oft though... manifestations
Come quietly and unseen
Heaven and earths...sublime interactions
Spiritual sustenance to those in need

When do the angels come?
Invisibly in our midst
To the faithful in God's kingdom
They are there... when weighed down to the utmost

In our early days of growing
We may have had days like unto Kirtland
With inspiration richly flowing
And the ways of the world all but distant

Then... comes the days of struggle
Like unto the dark Nauvoo years
Presented with tests to juggle
From disappointments to evil pressing near

Perhaps we wish to recapture
The days of idealistic convictions
When there were moments of rapture
That calmed soaring constrictions

Perhaps now we feel surrounded
By what attacks our good home
Struggling to stay well grounded
To what was nourishingly once known

Know... that midst these tribulations
What was once felt will come again
Like unto the pioneer migrations
When they felt the carts pushing them instead


Bruce C. Hafen
When Do the Angels Come?
Ensign, April 1992, 12
click on the above title to go directly to lds.org and read the article

"Think of the angel who came to comfort the sleeping Elijah when he was in such despair that he wished to live no longer. (See 1 Kgs. 19:4–8.) Or recall when Joseph Smith “saw the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb, … in foreign lands, standing together in a circle, much fatigued, with their clothes tattered and feet swollen, with their eyes cast downward, and Jesus standing in their midst, and they did not behold Him. The Savior looked upon them and wept.” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 2:381; italics added.) The Prophet also “saw Elder Brigham Young in a strange land, … in a desert place, upon a rock in the midst of about a dozen [hostile] men. He was preaching to them in their own tongue, and the angel of God standing above his head, with a drawn sword in his hand, protecting him, but he did not see it.” (Ibid.; italics added.)"

"For an unforgettable picture of unseen angelic armies, think of Elisha’s young servant, who cried when he was surrounded by an ominous army, “Alas, my master! how shall we do?” Answered Elisha, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” Then Elisha said, “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (See 2 Kgs. 6:15–17.)"

"President J. Reuben Clark eloquently captured the blessing of unseen angels in the lives of ordinary, devoted people in his masterful sermon, “To Them of the Last Wagon.” President Clark recognized the “mighty men” who led the early Saints, but he reserved his most reverent tribute for “the meekest and lowliest” found in “the last wagon in each of the long wagon trains.” Out in front of these toiling caravans were “the Brethren,” for whom “the air was clear and clean and … they had unbroken vision of the blue vault of heaven.” But, in contrast, “back in the last wagon, … the blue heaven was often shut out from their sight by heavy, dense clouds of the dust of the earth … [which made] the glories of a celestial world [seem] so far away.”

"Even though some of the early brethren had seen “in a vision, the armies of heaven protecting the Saints in their return to Zion” (History of the Church, 2:381), President Clark mentioned angels only once. After describing the grinding frustrations of lame oxen, broken hubs, and sick children in the last wagon, he spoke of a pregnant mother trying to breathe through heavy, choking dust. “Then the morning came when from out that last wagon floated the la-la of the newborn babe, and mother love made a shrine, and Father bowed in reverence before it. But the train must move on. So out into the dust and dirt the last wagon moved again, swaying and jolting, while Mother eased as best she could each pain-giving jolt so no harm might be done her, that she might be strong to feed the little one, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. Who will dare to say that angels did not cluster round and guard her and ease her rude bed, for she had given another choice spirit its mortal body that it might work out its God-given destiny?” (New Era, July 1975, p. 8; italics added.)"