Do Angels Sing?

Q. If angels don’t have bodies, how can they sing?

A. Do angels actually sing? Countless Christmas carols feature singing angels, yet nowhere does Scripture explicitly refer to “angels” singing, even at Jesus’ birth. Luke’s Gospel tells us that the angels were “praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest …” (Luke 2:13–14a).

Even so, the Book of Revelation seems to refer to singing angels without identifying them explicitly as such. St. John tells us about the “four living creatures” around God’s throne who “never cease to sing” (see Revelation 4:8—5:14). Ancient Christian tradition affirms that these are angelic beings (who appear also in Ezekiel 1:4–25), so we can conclude that these passages refer to singing angels. In addition, the Liturgy of the Mass proclaims: “Now, with angels and archangels, and the whole company of heaven, we sing the unending hymn of your praise.”

Angels are purely spiritual beings; they have no bodies as part of their own nature. So how do they sing? The same way they speak and appear to us in various ways: God has them assume forms that we can hear and see, so they can communicate with us.