Drawn from The Liber Christo Method, this reflection explores how your guardian angel—assigned by God—acts as your spiritual ranger buddy, protecting your soul in the midst of battle. It also reveals how demons exploit memory and emotion, making the custody of the mind essential for lasting interior freedom and liberation through Christ.
Your Guardian on the Battlefield of Life
Every ranger has a “ranger buddy” on the team to help him through the rigorous training. This fellow ranger helps carry your load when you are down, looks out for you, and is there when things get hardest and darkest. In military language, he has your “six” (your back).
God has given to you a guardian angel as your ranger buddy. As Jesus said, “For I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father” (Mt 18:10). The Catechism states: “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.”
Angels Are Spiritual Warriors
Part of an angel’s mission is to fight off demons, whom Saint Peter refers to as a “roaring lion” (1 Pt 5:8). The psalmist proclaims: “He commands his angels with regard to you, to guard you wherever you go… You can tread upon the asp and the viper, trample the lion and the dragon” (Ps 91:11–13).
The Greek word angelos means “messenger.” Far superior to us, they serve as messengers of God to communicate His plan of salvation.
Personal, Powerful, and Present
“As purely spiritual creatures,” the Catechism says, “angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures.”
As Father Ripperger notes, angels “help man in attaining heaven” both by directing man’s actions to the good and by freeing him from what impedes that goal. Their ultimate task? Our salvation.
Your guardian angel has seven key missions:
- Ward off danger of body and soul
- Strengthen you in temptation
- Illuminate holy thoughts and desires
- Offer prayers to God
- Correct you after sin
- Help at the hour of death
- Conduct your soul to heaven or purgatory
How Angels Influence Us
Your angel does not communicate like you do. According to Thomistic understanding, humans understand through images in the imagination. Angels, however, use direct illumination. They prompt holy thoughts by placing images (phantasms) in the imagination.
They cannot read your mind or infuse ideas directly into your intellect. But they can guide your reasoning by sparking insight or good desires—what might be called “good temptations.”
The Enemy’s Strategy: Demonic Distortion
Fallen angels, or demons, also retain their angelic nature. They too can project phantasms into the imagination. Though they cannot touch the intellect or will, they do have access to the body—and therefore to the imagination, memory, and emotions.
Father Ripperger explains that demons “can only cause a phantasm which has something prior in the memory.” In other words, they manipulate the data already stored in your mind.
By merging, distorting, and exaggerating memories, demons can project images that warp how we see past events, people, or even ourselves.
Why Memory Matters
Memory becomes one of the key battlegrounds. The “thirty-day withdrawal into the desert” deprives demons of new sensory input. This helps purify the memory and calm the emotions.
Emotions, rooted in the senses, are unreliable indicators of our relationship with God. Mystical phenomena can be mimicked by demons, especially where emotional wounds exist.
Here’s a powerful exercise:
Recall a painful experience. Notice the emotions that arise—anger, shame, fear. Try to separate the memory from the emotion. It’s hard, because the emotion is tied to how you perceived the event.
When painful memories aren’t offered to Christ, they become spiritual vulnerabilities.
Triggering the Past
Demons access your memory, trigger emotional responses, and distort those memories. Once a strong emotion is present in the imagination, they can manipulate it further—introducing even false perceptions of the event.
They may use what sounds like your own interior voice, making it hard to discern your thoughts from prayer or even from God. This is why “custody of the mind” through prayer is essential to spiritual freedom.
The Danger of Dwelling
While demons don’t know your future, they stir up your past to provoke emotional reactions. When you are emotionally unstable, they project a distorted memory—one laced with shame, worthlessness, or self-condemnation. These directly attack your identity as a child of God.
Toward Interior Freedom
Emotions are part of being human. Not all emotion is diabolically influenced. But emotional volatility is a spiritual vulnerability.
Demons are drawn to emotional wounds. That’s why mastering the emotions through “custody of the mind” is critical to liberation.
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This article is taken from a chapter in The Liber Christo Method by Dan Schneider, PhD which is available from TAN Books.
