Do Angels Get Dirty? By Norm O'Banyon
I examined the hands that came out from the engine compartment. They were smeared with the grease of a stubborn bolt, and coated with the grime of neglect. “I wonder if Angels ever get their hands dirty,” I pondered.
I examined all the church art I could find, not a single soiled angel. So I turned to scripture, 
where I learned that Angels only do hard work, big nasty jobs, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, like preventing Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, or wrestling with Jacob all night. The Psalmist says that Angels are charged with the task of protecting the faithful in all their ways (91:11), and routing their enemies in battle (35:5-6). Sounds like a dirty job to me. And standing before a young virgin named Mary, seeking her cooperation in bringing the Incarnate God into our human history would drench a man, or an Angel, in perspiration! That's hard work!
My conclusion is that Angel hands are frequently, maybe always, dirty because they are doing the work of God in this world. So my Auto Angel prayer has become: “Lord, let me see you as God of the Garage, as clearly as God of the Chapel or Sanctuary. Let me see these smeared hands as holy for they are doing Angel work, for you see the stranded as precious as the lost, or lonely. What I do today is a gift to you. These soiled hands are a sign of your love for the world, which Jesus came to save. Amen.”