With every episode, it gets harder for me to defend the Christian underpinnings of this drama. At first glance, the story looks innocuous but it diverges so much from Catholic orthodoxy that I wouldn’t be surprised if the writer intended it to mock, even attack my faith. And that’s why I’m pushing back harder and pointing out the incongruities.
Let me answer Dan’s question. “Can humans become angels?”
Answer is no. No human being ever was or will become an angel. Catholics believe that angels are immortal spirits.
Let’s break that down.
Point 1. I said immortal, not eternal.
God is eternal. By that, I mean He has no beginning nor end. Angels, however, were created by God so they have beginnings. They were made to be immortal or undying. That’s what immortal means. They’ll never die.
Point 2. I said spirit.
Angels are pure spirit. Unlike humans, they don’t have bodies. Humans are EMBODIED spirits, that is, they are body-soul composites. Humans are spirits with bodies. However, there are biblical accounts when angels took on a human appearance. But take note. I said “appearance.” The angels didn’t incarnate and become human. They only took on the appearance of a human. For Christians, there’s only one heavenly being that took on a human body, and that’s Jesus Christ.
See there: that’s Catholic orthodoxy, in a nutshell. According to my belief, it’s impossible that a) the young Kim Dan aka Yoo Seong Woo died and became an angel in the afterlife, and b) the angel Dan became human and took on a human nature. He isn’t Jesus.
For the sake of this kdrama, “Angel’s Last Mission: Love”, however, I suspended my disbelief and tolerated all this nonsense about angels in the story. There’s a cognitive dissonance when I’m watching Angel Dan ask “Can humans become angels?” because the answer is no but I’m obviously making an exception in his case since I’m watching the show. 😂
Do you get it?
But to me, this angel concept isn’t as vexing as the problem of death and how it was depicted.
Angel Dan burst in the head angel’s room, all agitated by his confusion on human nature. He went, “What I mean is that…they were human before and somehow ended up dying. And then their souls become angels. Does that ever happen?
HA: Why are you suddenly asking about the secrets of the spiritual realm?
Dan: I keep having dreams. There’s a young boy. He jumps and falls into the sea and then drowns. But I’ve never seen this kid before. Not even in pictures. I haven’t seen him since I was dispatched either. Then, who is he?
HA: Oh, god! The body has serious defects. Now he’s even dreaming about things he wished for.
pics
Dan: Things I wish for?
HA: When humans have a wish, they begin to ponder about it over and over again. Then their brain cells begin to get confused. Is this the future? The past? Or just their desire? It’s just a side effect. Just forget about it.
Take a note of this. The Old Lady is the perfect example of this situation. She had a wish to meet her dead husband, and her aging brain cells mixed up past, present and future with reality and desire. But if we think about this further, Kangwoo is also confused. He’s holed up in that crematorium of his that he calls home and talks to the Dead Girl.
Dan: Dreaming about things I wish for? Sunbae, are you saying that I wish to be human? Is that even possible? An angel becoming human? (he’s smacked on the head) Why are you hitting me?
HA: Follow me.
Dan: (arriving at the nursing home) You never explain the most important things. Why are we here? This is a sanatorium.
*****************
They chased and caught Angel Noel. Noel means Christmas in French.
HA: Angel Noel, receive your judgment.
Dan: (surprised) He’s an angel?
Old Lady: (shielding him) Please let him go.
HA: You immature being.
I’m not sure who he was calling immature here, the angel or the Old Lady. I’m assuming the Old Lady couldn’t hear him.
Noel: (embracing the Old Lady) It’s fine even if I disappear this instant. But please spare her.
HA: Death is not a punishment.
Yes! This! 👍 The head angel got this right. But it was baldly said that viewers ignored the significance of this pithy statement. Faithful Christians see death as going home to the Lord. It’s definitely not a punishment but angel Noel acted as if she had to be “saved from” death instead of “guided” to face death peacefully, joyfully.
Christianity 101: Because of Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection, Christians hope to share in this eternal life with their God. That was His promise. 🙂 Why do you think so many Christians were — and still are — willing to be martyred when persecuted? Christians approach death with peace and trust.
HA: (continuing) How dare an angel who refused to bring her to paradise, speak of life and death of a human?
The head angel had reason to show contempt. The Old Lady is meant to be brought to paradise, to rejoin God’s people. But Angel Noel – for all the wrong reasons – detained her from being reunited with God. He essentially disobeyed God’s will.
Old Lady: Where are you? Where did you go? Where are you?
Remember that this is the same Old Lady who almost burned down the nursing home. She was searching for her husband-who-isn’t-her-husband and shoved YeonSeo to the ground. She wouldn’t calm down and she knocked a candle to the edge of the table where it fell and ignited a trash can. People could have died in the fire. And this accident was caused by her crazed search for her so-called husband, Angel Noel.
Furthermore, the reason she was agitated was because of her guilt. She knew she was keeping somebody who did NOT belong to her in the first place. She’s STOLEN him because she wanted a PRETEND husband. #fact The angel belonged to God and she worried daily that God would take him away from her.
Noel: Then, please allow me to say my last goodbye. Even a minute is enough for me.
The head angel relented.
Noel: I’m here.
Old Lady: Don’t go. No, don’t leave me. You promised to stay with me.
Noel: I was here for a long time. I was very happy to be able to meet you. I will not forget, my dear Mi Wook.
The head angel moved closer.
Dan: No. You can’t.
HA: Move aside.
Dan: Just a little more. Give them just a little more time.
The head angel threw him out his way. See here. At this point, Angel Dan didn’t comprehend the whole scene unfolding before him. He was only moved by compassion. He didn’t know that, in reality, facing death was the more compassionate choice.
HA: If you won’t listen to what I say, I’ll have to show you. You foolish one. I hope you’ll be enlightened.
Sigh. Inducing fear is never a good way to convert people – or in this case, to motivate Dan to do his mission well. However, if the head angel explains everything step-by-step, then there’s no need to be faithful is there?
lol. Remember my post in “Memories of the Alhambra” about the the difference between faith and certainty?
*****************
The last scene on death was crucial to understanding why the head angel was angry with Angel Noel.
Old Lady: In my dream, I went to a beautiful field of reeds. I was holding hands with you. And we walked together. It was beautiful. Can you take me there?
Dan: Pardon? To where?
Old Lady: There. In that field.
They walked to the field.
Old Lady: Do you remember the day we met for the first time?
Dan: How was it? (he was stalling her because he didn’t know anything about that day)
Old Lady: You lied.
Flashback to a year ago, when Noel appeared at the side of the Old Lady. I think he was the designated angel of death to bring her to heaven.
Old Lady: Is that you? (touching his vest) You’re wearing the white suit that you had on for our wedding day. (She knew he wasn’t her husband) What am I going to do? I’ve aged too much. Don’t I look ugly? (she was acting coy here. Almost flirting — at her age!)
Noel: You look beautiful. Just like that day. (hugging her)
Back to reality:
Old Lady: Thank you for lying.
Dan: I was happy (he pretended too to comfort her) every single day. I was truly happy that I could do that.
Old Lady fainted.
Dan: Are you alright? Let’s go back to the sanatorium now.
Old Lady: Thank you, young man, for what you’ve done that day and today.
Dan: Do you know who I am? Is your memory back?
This Old Lady must have been sly one when she was young. She tricked him to bring her back to the site where Angel Noel died. lol. She has her memory back…or at least she’s got her “selective” memory back. She doesn’t remember her first husband, her children (if she had any), her siblings, her friends. But she remembers Noel.
Old Lady: I only wish that everything was all a dream. I thought I braced myself for it. During 70 years of my life, we’ve said goodbye so many times. Saying goodbye is hard every time, you know.
No. Sentimental mawkishness aside, saying goodbye can often be a blessing. You say goodbye to a bad romance, a bad year, a bad memory. Goodbyes allow you to have new Hellos. To be specific, saying goodbye to this world means saying hello to a new life in heaven.
Old Lady: (touching the ground) It was here. This was the spot, right? He only left behind this handkerchief with a feather on it. This is the only thing he left behind. His body disappeared as if he was never here. How futile this is. Please come to this world as a human in your next life.
Nope. There’s no reincarnation, Old Lady. For Christians, death is not at all futile. The final destination for us Christian is heaven and death is only a transitional phase, like bridge we need to cross so we can finally join and be united with our departed loved ones…and God. So how can death be futile? Reincarnation is the futile one. If each time you are reborn in a new body with new memories, then how the heck will you know what sins you’re atoning for and what sins you’re supposed to have learned from? Duhhh.
Old Lady: (continuing) I’ll be your guardian angel.
Oh pleaseeee, Old Lady. You’ll lead him astray. Why are you so sure you’ll be an angel?
Dan: Did you know that he was an angel? Weren’t you scared? He’s not human. He’s like a spirit or a monster.
Old Lady: No monster in this world can be as kindhearted as he was. When I said that he was my husband who passed away 30 years ago, he played along and said that he was.
Well, since she already took the job of the monster, Noel couldn’t be the monster. 🤪 This has to be said, bluntly. SHE took advantage of the kindness of Angel Noel and enticed him to stay with her and to pretend to be her dead husband. She’s like Kangwoo, only with a gentler face.
The head angel warned Dan of this. Remember? He said that when humans have an intense wish, they delude themselves. Their brain cells become confused. “Is this the future? The past? Or just their desire?” In other words, they obsess. This Old Lady pined for her husband, and she used Angel Noel to fill in the shoes of her longed-for husband.
And Kangwoo is similar to this Old Lady, too. Because of his obsession over the Dead Girl, he can’t let go and he’s using YeonSeo to fill in for his original Giselle.
See? The Old Lady and KangWoo are different people of different ages and different faces. But they have the SAME mindset. They’re using other beings for their fantasy world.
Old Lady: Every day for a year, he lied to me with a kind heart.
Dan has a flashback to Noel telling Dan, “You don’t need to spend a long time for it to be true love. If you can give her love, that can amount to 1000 years’ worth of love, that’s all.”
My gut reaction here is: What the heck? A millennium’s worth of love? That’s still nothing compared to God’s infinite love. This writer’s understanding of Christian faith is crappy.
Dan: How…How can you be like that?
Did he mean selfish? How could she be egocentric, self-serving and self-centered? lol. In my book, this Old Lady abused Noel’s kindheartedness. She made him play charade for a whole year that he was her long-dead husband because she wanted to keep him at her side. And Noel paid the ultimate sacrifice for her because he disobeyed God’s plans for her. Noel disappeared. The Old Lady reminded me of an Eve all over again, when she lead the angel to go astray.
To me, if he truly loved Noel, she would have stopped her pathetic pretense before she ruined him.
Dan: (continuing) I…ran away. I was scared.
Old Lady: Of vanishing?
This is HER fear she was projecting on Dan. She feared “vanishing” into oblivion hence she prolonged her death. Had she believed in heaven, she wouldn’t have kept the angel for a year because the angel for an earthly companion is no comparison to a reunion with loved ones and God in paradise.
Lol. How many times will I have to repeat this theme?
Dan: No. I was afraid I would hold onto her. When I’m with her, I want to hold her hand and give her a hug. But if I do that, I thought I would make YeonSeo sad. I thought she might become unhappy.
Old Lady: I do not regret anything. I’m sad. I’m heartbroken. But that’s my fate. It was me. I’m the one he came across. I’m grateful. I don’t resent him. When two people meet one another, it’s never meaningless. I believe in fate. That it is what led us to meet each other.
To me, her death is sad.
She was resigned to dying but exhibited no joy in it. She spoke as if she wasn’t looking forward to finally joining her husband and loved ones in the afterlife. There was no comfort in her that they, in the company of angels and saints, were all eagerly waiting to receive her in heaven.
She didn’t pray. She didn’t ask the Mother of God to pray for her a sinner, at the hour of her death, in the Hail Mary prayer. She didn’t entrust her soul to God. And Angel Dan forgot to utter Jesus’ final words on the cross for her, “Father, into your hands I comment my spirit.”
And there was no hope. She was resigned to her fate. She said she was sad and heartbroken but she had no choice but to live with (or die with) the sad fate she was given. If she were Christian, she’d be hopeful for her eternal life after death.
So there you have it. My explanation on angels and death. It’s an understatement to say that I’m not happy with this writer’s treatment of them.
I’ll add pics later. Must go to the airport now.
Great write-up @packmule3! DB commenters have complained or been confused by this writer’s cavalier use of things Christian and Catholic to push his story in whatever way he wants it to go. I’m glad you’ve addressed so many points on where he’s gone off course and continues to mislead. Of course once again, I’m going to post a link to this page for those who may like to know what’s what.
One side note about Even in The Fall: I was glad to read (sorry don’t have the reference) that both Adam and Eve are considered equally culpable in that conversation with the serpent. When I was younger, I was given the impression that Eve was the one at fault. I was happy to find out since, that, that is not the right interpretation.
Adam was meant to protect his wife, but he allowed her to be misled by the serpent. Although he was not mentioned during that conversation with the serpent, it was likely that he was standing next to her and listening, but he did not argue for God and did nothing to dissuade Eve. Knowing full well that the fruit was forbidden, he still took it and ate.
It’s true that in typology, it is easier to say that the first Eve brought about sin and death through her disobedience, while Mary, Mother of God is the second Eve who overturned these evils by her obedience. However when I do this typology, I tell kids that Adam was there too!!! 😇 🤪
Good point there about Eve, @growingbeautifully!
Now that I’ve gotten this whole religion off my chest, I can write my highlights. That ending scene in Ep 14 bugged me so I waited and waited for the Viki subs for Eps 15 and 16 to come out. I eventually went to another site.
The show has used lots of Marian statues as props. But so far, none of the characters acts like Mary. Lol.
And that mention of the fiery pit? I thought it was interesting that the Butler also threatened the Four-Eyed company guy to throw him into the fiery pit. Foreshadowing, perhaps? Is she another one of them?
Some commenters, including myself, think that Butler Jung might be another angel, but we hope she’s on the side of good. There’s someone who’s feeding info to Kang Woo about YS, or who was anyway, and we were wondering if that might be her. If so then she’s another gray character although so far, she’s been ‘good’.
Yes, the frequent mention of fiery pits got my attention too. I didn’t keep track of who mentioned it and in what context, for instance, was it used as a threat only by KW and Butler Jung? Did Dan only use the term when he said he’d not go there? So I’m thinking Writer has this old school, Old Testament idea of hell and brimstone, and a vengeful god as one major focus of the Faith, and is putting this all out there. Tiresome.
I find that the excessive display of Marian statues not only in this show but in others pertaining to have Catholic links, is precisely to hammer home the point that it’s the Catholic church or priest or people who are being portrayed. Actually, if a church is being used for a scene, it’s almost always a Catholic one. In fact, I cannot recall a church I’ve seen in a drama that wasn’t!!! I put this down to the openness of the Church as a whole, and the fact that people misleading others about the faith do not have to fear repercussions from the Church. 🤨
I appreciate the time you put into writing this post. Mostly, I agree with you.
And I know only God can judge , but due to the old lady’s behavior, I don’t think she will be saved (resurrected at the First Resurrection to go to Paradise).
And an angel of death brings death (a sleep, it’s not a punishment, like Hoo seonbae said) not escort a person to Heaven (this is not a biblical teaching).
Anyway, speaking about Eve. She was alone, Adam was not standing next to her and casually took a fruit, too. He was working in the garden when she departed from him. And when she returned with fruits, in his mind was a great battle…
The reference will be long, but it is very interesting!
“The angels had cautioned Eve to beware of separating herself
from her husband while occupied in their daily labor in the garden; with him she would be in less danger from temptation than if she were alone. But absorbed in her pleasing task, she unconsciously wandered from his side. On perceiving that she was alone, she felt an apprehension of danger, but dismissed her fears, deciding that she
had sufficient wisdom and strength to discern evil and to withstand it. Unmindful of the angels’ caution, she soon found herself gazing with mingled curiosity and admiration upon the forbidden tree. (…)
The serpent plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree and placed
it in the hands of the half-reluctant Eve. Then he reminded her
[56] of her own words, that God had forbidden them to touch it, lest
they die. She would receive no more harm from eating the fruit,
he declared, than from touching it. Perceiving no evil results from
what she had done, Eve grew bolder. When she “saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to
be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat.” It was grateful to the taste, and as she ate, she seemed to feel a
vivifying power, and imagined herself entering upon a higher state
of existence. Without a fear she plucked and ate. And now, having
herself transgressed, she became the agent of Satan in working the
ruin of her husband. In a state of strange, unnatural excitement, with
her hands filled with the forbidden fruit, she sought his presence,
and related all that had occurred.
An expression of sadness came over the face of Adam. He
appeared astonished and alarmed. To the words of Eve he replied
that this must be the foe against whom they had been warned; and
by the divine sentence she must die. In answer she urged him to eat,
repeating the words of the serpent, that they should not surely die.
She reasoned that this must be true, for she felt no evidence of God’s
displeasure, but on the contrary realized a delicious, exhilarating
influence, thrilling every faculty with new life, such, she imagined,
as inspired the heavenly messengers.
Adam understood that his companion had transgressed the com-
mand of God, disregarded the only prohibition laid upon them as
a test of their fidelity and love. There was a terrible struggle in his
mind. He mourned that he had permitted Eve to wander from his
side. But now the deed was done; he must be separated from her
whose society had been his joy. How could he have it thus? Adam
had enjoyed the companionship of God and of holy angels. He had
looked upon the glory of the Creator. He understood the high destiny
opened to the human race should they remain faithful to God. Yet
all these blessings were lost sight of in the fear of losing that one
gift which in his eyes outvalued every other. Love, gratitude, loyalty to the Creator—all were overborne by love to Eve. She was a part
of himself, and he could not endure the thought of separation. He
did not realize that the same Infinite Power who had from the dust
of the earth created him, a living, beautiful form, and had in love
given him a companion, could supply her place. He resolved to
share her fate; if she must die, he would die with her. After all,
he reasoned, might not the words of the wise serpent be true? Eve
was before him, as beautiful and apparently as innocent as before
this act of disobedience. She expressed greater love for him than
before. No sign of death appeared in her, and he decided to brave
the consequences. He seized the fruit and quickly ate.”
(The Story of Patriarchs and Prophets, pp.38;41)
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