Dear Padre,

Where have you been, my friend? Ever since the day your email popped up in my folder, I have relied on the wisdom of your sage counsel. I knew you were truly an angel from the first. There was a picture after all: a gray-haired man with a beard. I knew you were reliable because you had a halo glow radiating from your skin. I knew you could do miracles because no matter how many times I unsubscribed myself you popped up again.

At first I was confused to get regular correspondence from an angel. But thankfully I found your angel blog (my how they upgrade these days).  I learned that angels are very delicate and compassionate. I am certain that Lot and the men of Sodom would be very surprised at this. I learned too that there is a delicate energy one feels when praying to an angel. I can only suppose that angel computers are made by windows, and glitch as badly as earthly ones. This teaching is theologically aberrant. I recommend getting a mac.

So what, my friend, has become of you? You give me your special counsel every other day (judging from my email), but what of the time in between? How if I were to face temptation between now and next Thursday? What if I was left counsel-less in the midst of the email scams of life? How if I were to get an email from a false angel? You see, far from pushing yourself upon me you have been too much a stranger.

What, pray tell, are the heavenly counselors thinking? Do they think that just because Christians are justified by the work of Christ and able, through His word, to face the temptations of the world, that they do not need the garish counsel of cooky email angels? I urge them to reconsider. That is to say, I urge you to urge them. Based on my attempts to unsubscribe, it seems I have limited weight in heaven. But here too I am worried. Your mediation seems limited to certain days of the week. I feel a sense of desperation, and am not at all happy with this arrangement. Walmart, my dear Padre, does a better job with their customer service. Kindly inform the angels that I expect them to step up their game.

I have some other grievances as well. I may as well list them (it’s not every day you get to talk to your guardian angel). Your letters. They look like a tacky version of a space cadet recruitment center. All purple and fake gold and gloss. I suggest that this is more appropriate for a used car salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Life Celebration Bash than counsel from a guardian angel. If you are not humiliated by this, I certainly am. Imagine my chagrin, when I open your emails in the presence of my friends. Imagine the embarrassment! Imagine explaining that my guardian angel never made it out of Computer Designing 101. I expect this complaint will be rectified in your next email, or I will be unable to take you seriously.

I own I am also concerned by your name. Perhaps guardian angels are no longer required to take foreign languages? Allow me to enlighten you. “Padre” means “Father” in Spanish. I am sure you would never presume to take such a title for yourself, as that would be either manifestly untrue, or borderline sacrilegious. As to the first, I am most certainly not your son. My skin does not have a weird alien glow emanating from the cheekbone region. As to the second, it almost makes you sound angel (ish) and godlike. A mistake I am sure you did not intend.  For that, as I am sure you must know, is what caused a third of the angels of heaven to we swept from their place. I do not recommend you to go in there.

Finally–my greatest fear–what if you are not an angel at all? It is silly, I am sure, to worry about the reality of a guardian angel who sends emails on a regular schedule. What more evidence could anyone require? My religion– the one taught in the Bible (It’s a best seller. You can find it if you google), takes false teaching very seriously. If it should turn out that you are actually scamming people, that you are pretending to be Padre the angel just to get money or email addresses or information, then you should be very concerned. It is bad enough to lie and to steal. It is doubly so, when lying about eternal matters, on which peoples’ souls depend. There is a place in Hell reserved for people who lie (Rev. 21:8), and it would be a shame to someday hear that my guardian angel ended up in that place.

Sincerely,

Your friend

P.S. Please unsubscribe me.