Guardian Angels, Igbo spirituality, and the questions missionary teaching leaves behind.
Yesterday was the feast of the Guardian Angels. We fondly call our guardian “Angel of God,” as though the others were not also of God. Yet these angels hold a particular place in our lives.
One of the best-known Catholic prayers expresses this relationship beautifully:
Angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom God’s love commits me here,
ever this day be at my side,
to light and guard, to rule and guide.
Amen.
Here is a spiritual companion entrusted with our care: to enlighten, protect and guide us.
For many Igbo Christians, this sounds familiar.
In Igbo spirituality, Chi is understood as a personal spiritual companion associated with one’s life and destiny, within a relationship to Chukwu, the Supreme God. Chi and the Guardian Angel belong to different religious understandings, but the language of personal care and guidance brings them close.
The Igbo translation of the prayer makes that closeness especially striking:
Angel nke Chukwu, gi bu onye nche nkem, onye Chukwu roro m tinye n’aka ya, nye m ife, chebe m, dube m, n’achi m azu.
“Angel of God, you are my guardian, the one into whose hands God entrusted me. Enlighten me, protect me, lead me and guide me.”
Among the Igala, belief in Ọjọ́, the Supreme God, also makes room for the Ibegwu, the ancestral spirits who watch over the well-being of families and communities. Here, spiritual protection is rooted in kinship and the continuing relationship between the living and their ancestors. This differs from the personal character of Chi, but offers another way of understanding that we do not walk through life alone.
When missionary teaching dismisses Chi without adequately exploring its meaning, while introducing a Guardian Angel whose role sounds remarkably familiar, it leaves a question that deserves more than dismissal.
When I experience spiritual protection and guidance, is it my Chi or my Guardian Angel?
Today’s missionaries must ask whether they are repeating the history of their predecessors. Before dismissing a people’s spiritual understanding, they must listen, enter into relationship and learn what its words and practices mean. What does it mean to reject Chi, only to introduce a Guardian Angel whose care sounds so familiar? The Gospel does not arrive among people whom God has abandoned until the missionary comes. Missionaries must therefore be willing to discover how people have already encountered God, and allow that encounter to deepen their own understanding of the faith they proclaim.
