Editor’s note: The following homily was preached by the Reverend Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., on 29 September 2017, feast of the Archangels at the Blue Army Shrine in Washington, New Jersey, for the pilgrimage of the members of the Altar-Rosary Societies of New Jersey.
A story is told of an elderly priest who had served at the motherhouse of a community of Sisters for decades. As he was dying, the Mother General asked him if he had any last requests. He said, “I want to be buried with the Sisters.” She informed him that, according to the rule of the order, that was not possible. He pressed: “After all my years of service, I think I deserve some special consideration.” Reverend Mother went to the general council, who came up with a Solomonic solution: Monsignor could be buried in a plot at the entrance to the nuns’ cemetery. So, now the question was: “What do you want on your tombstone?” Quickly, the old gent replied: “Blessed art thou among women!” I feel somewhat like that today.
The convergence of your pilgrimage, the Fatima centennial and the feast of the day presents us with an embarrassment of riches. I hope I can do justice to it all.
First of all, the Church’s calendar would have us honor the three archangels named in Sacred Scripture: Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. Those familiar with the Low Mass of the Extraordinary Form, of course, know that the Leonine Prayers include the petition to St. Michael the Archangel to “defend us in battle” and to “to be our safeguard against the wiles and snares of the Devil.” However, when was the last time you prayed that lovely prayer the Sisters taught us in kindergarten: “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.”?
Let us give some specific consideration to St. Michael as the great defender of the honor of God and the protector of the Church’s faithful, who find themselves under the assault of the Evil One in so many ways.
There are the assaults that come from without, done by the hands of those who hate God and/or His holy Church. Here we think of what our co-religionists suffer in places like Communist China, in so many countries of the Middle East, but also through the militant secularists of Western Europe and North America, yes, even in our own country, thanks to the aggression of the neo-pagans in our midst and groups like the ACLU.
Then there are the assaults that come from within the Church, done by those hell-bent (literally) on creating a new Church and a new religion. These would-be reformers preach and teach overt heresy and destroy the sense of the sacred by their liturgical machinations. And all of this so often is done with the complicity of priests and bishops who are weak and ineffectual. Yes, Satan uses our weakness to pursue his plan with strength.
To ward off the assaults of Satan—both internal and external—we need to have recourse to the powerful intercession of St. Michael the Archangel. The one who faced down Lucifer and his minions at the dawn of creation has not lost any of his power; indeed, the Book of Revelation informs us that it is precisely he who will lead the faithful to final victory.
And now for a bit of refresher course in “angelology”—to which the Catechism of the Catholic Church devotes no less than twenty-five paragraphs.
Angels are pure spirits who assume bodily form when sent on a mission by the Almighty. In fact, their very name in Greek means “messenger.” So it is that we relate to them not in terms of their own identity but for the One Whom they represent. Both the Old and New Testaments are filled with references to the interventions of angels, which are always seen as signs of God’s desire to be present to us, as well as His wish to reveal His will and providence to us.
As I mentioned, the angels of today’s feast have names, and like all Hebrew names, they have meaning and give a clue as to their special mission. Michael’s name translates as: “Who is like God?”—a reminder that it was he who was sent to do battle with the personification of pride in Lucifer, who indeed saw himself as like unto God. “Gabriel” means “God is strong”—an important point to ponder when, like the Blessed Virgin at the Annunciation, we ask how something apparently impossible can happen. Raphael’s name tells us that “God heals”—a fact so obvious to a person of faith that we often fail to be impressed continually by the love it represents. Thus, the names of those three angels point to the ineffable omnipotence and benevolence of the very Godhead.
What is the work of the angels? To watch over the lives of us here below; to present our prayers and petitions to God; to serve as the Lord’s special messengers; to lead the just into Paradise, as we sing in the beautiful In Paradisum of the Mass of Christian Burial. All of this bespeaks the Lord’s love and concern for His children. However, the first and most important task of the angels gives us a hint as to what God expects of us humans, too—the unceasing adoration of Almighty God.
And so, the most important thing the angels do is linked to the most important thing the Church on earth can do as the liturgy of earth is united to the liturgy of Heaven. As we enter into the Canon of the Mass, we shall recall this fact when we say: “And so, with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominions, and with all hosts and Powers of heaven, we sing the hymn of your glory, as without end we acclaim: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.” That everlasting hymn of praise to God is the angels’ highest calling, and it is ours as well. Further into the Canon, we shall ask the Father: “Command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy angel to your altar on high in the sight of your divine majesty.” The Incarnation announced by Gabriel reaches its fulfillment in the mystery of the Holy Eucharist as God’s messenger becomes the deacon, as it were, who presents the Eucharistic Christ once more to His heavenly Father.
On this feast when the Church invites us to reflect on the ministry of angels, we thank Almighty God for giving us His messengers, and we ask for the wisdom and humility of children to appreciate anew their significance for our lives because, after all is said and done, if one has outgrown the angels, that same person may also have outgrown God—a point made by Our Lord in the Gospel for the memorial of the Guardian Angels.
Today’s archangels are known to us because of their apparitions to people like us. And, of course, the whole Fatima devotion is based on the apparitions of Our Lady a hundred years ago to three shepherd children. Which leads to our next consideration.
And so, allow me to reflect on the meaning of miracles, both biblical and post-biblical, the topic of two volumes of the work of Blessed John Henry Newman—which I would commend to the more stalwart among you.
It seems that there are always two opposing approaches to the miraculous: the first denies the possibility of any divine interventions ever, while, the second finds a miracle under every tree or on every hamburger! As usual, the Church declares, “in medio stat virtus” (virtue stands in the middle).
Cardinal Newman observes that miracles in the Old Testament are rather scarce; this may surprise those who are used to viewing the Old Testament through the prism of Cecil B. DeMille. Miracles, however, were to blossom at the coming of the Messiah, according to Jewish thought—a proof of his identity and a sign of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. And so, as few and far between as they are in the Old Dispensation, we find them popping up on almost every page of the New Testament. It is interesting that no one (not even Jesus’ enemies, whether pagan Romans or hostile Jewish religious authorities) suggests that He did not work miracles; His opponents merely seek to explain them away by asserting either that they are little more than a magician’s tricks (which is why St. John never uses the word “miracle,” preferring “sign”) or that He is able to do such marvelous works because He is in league with the Devil.
So, from even a purely critical, objective and historical standpoint, the miracles of Jesus should be undisputed. The problem surfaces for some, however, when it comes to what Newman calls “ecclesiastical” miracles, that is, miracles occurring in the age of the Church. And the Cardinal has a very engaging response to such skeptics:
Catholics, then, hold the mystery of the Incarnation; and the Incarnation is the most stupendous event which ever can take place on earth; and after it and henceforth, I do not see how we can scruple at any miracle on the mere ground of its being unlikely to happen. No miracle can be so great as that which took place in the Holy House of Nazareth; it is indefinitely more difficult to believe than all the miracles of the Breviary, of the Martyrology, of saints’ lives, of legends, of local traditions, put together; and there is the grossest inconsistency on the very face of the matter, for anyone so to strain out the gnat and to swallow the camel, as to profess what is inconceivable, yet to protest against what is surely within the limits of intelligible hypothesis. If, through divine grace, we once are able to accept the solemn truth that the Supreme Being was born of a mortal woman, what is there to be imagined which can offend us on the ground of its marvellousness?1
In other words, if the Incarnation is true (which every Christian must believe)—and it is undoubtedly the greatest miracle imaginable—then why grouse about other miracles? The principle is simple: If God can do the greater, He can do the lesser.
That said, we can and should ask, “Why does God enable human beings to work miracles? Or, why miraculous events?” For two reasons, says St. Thomas Aquinas:
First and principally, in confirmation of the doctrine that a man teaches. For since those things which are of faith surpass human reason, they cannot be proved by human arguments, but need to be proved by the argument of divine power: so that when a man does works that God alone can do, we may believe that what he says is from God: just as when a man is the bearer of letters sealed with the king’s ring, it is to be believed that what they contain expresses the king’s will.
Aquinas goes on to offer a second purpose: “To make known God’s presence in a man by the grace of the Holy Ghost: so that when a man does the works of God we may believe that God dwells in him by His grace.”2 That said, Aquinas concedes that “miracles lessen the merit of faith,” but—nonetheless—he declares, “it is better for them to be converted to the faith even by miracles than that they should remain altogether in their unbelief.”3
Truth be told, the Church herself always exhibits a healthy skepticism when such extraordinary events are reported, with the presumption that the “seer” is either a deceiver or self-deceived. Clear criteria exist to test the veracity of the claim of supernatural character, among which are the orthodoxy of the message; the spirit of willing submission to ecclesiastical judgment on the part of the visionary; good fruits flowing from the event. Investigations into visions are conducted at the local or diocesan level, through recourse to theologians, pastors, psychiatrists and other professionals in a position to evaluate the spiritual, physical and mental state of the seer. Some investigations result in relatively quick judgments (usually negative), while other investigations can go on for years and may yield an indeterminate decision. It has been estimated that for every alleged apparition the Church accepts, there are a hundred that never receive a favorable judgment.
Sometimes people ask, “What does it matter if a vision is really occurring or not, as long as good things are happening (e.g., conversions, cures)?” It matters a great deal because the act of faith must always be grounded in reality and truth; it can never be based on a falsehood. That is why the Evangelists went to great pains to convince their readers that the Lord’s resurrection appearances were real and not phantasms; hence, the stress on His eating and drinking and being able to be touched. Belief is serious business, and God wants no one to be duped for He is, as the traditional act of faith declares, the One Who “can neither deceive nor be deceived.”
The present moment in history finds us confronted with hundreds of purported supernatural visitations. This proliferation is not cause for rejoicing; on the contrary, it suggests that people are not being spiritually fed through the normal means of grace (good catechesis and preaching; uplifting celebrations of the sacraments; strong witnesses to Christian living), and so, they run after cheap substitutes. Jesus cautioned us against such a spirit: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign.” He continued: “But no sign shall be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet” (Mt 12:39). Jonah’s message was a call to repentance; his sign in the belly of the whale for three days and nights was a prefigurement of Christ’s very passion, death and resurrection. Time after time, the Blessed Virgin, Queen of Prophets, directs us toward the “sign of Jonah” as she urges repentance through reception of the Sacrament of Penance and an experience of her Son’s Paschal Mystery through a worthy and devout reception of the Holy Eucharist. In this centennial of the Fatima apparitions, we need to heed the essence of that message.
Not infrequently, we hear people say, “If I had lived during the Lord’s earthly life and ministry and had seen his mighty deeds, my faith would have been so much stronger than it is now.” Once again, Cardinal Newman has a penetrating response:
. . . we are really far more favoured than they were [those who witnessed biblical miracles]; they had outward miracles; we too have miracles, but they are not outward but inward. Ours are not miracles of evidence, but of power and influence. They are secret, and more wonderful and efficacious because secret. Their miracles were wrought upon external nature; the sun stood still, and the sea parted. Ours are invisible, and are exercised upon the soul. They consist in the sacraments, and they just do that very thing which the Jewish miracles did not. They really touch the heart, though we so often resist their influence. If then we sin, as, alas! we do, if we do not love God more than the Jews did, if we have no heart for those “good things which pass men’s understanding,” we are not more excusable than they, but less so. For the supernatural works which God showed to them were wrought outwardly, not inwardly, and did not influence the will; they did but convey warnings; but the supernatural works which He does towards us are in the heart, and impart grace; and if we disobey, we are not disobeying His command only, but resisting His presence.4
We are about to witness and benefit from the greatest miracle possible, let us ask for the grace never to “resist His presence.” Interestingly, in the lead-up to the Marian apparitions of Fatima, the children encountered angelic visitations, during the last of which the angel was holding in his left hand a chalice and, over it, a Host from which drops of blood fell into the chalice. He instructed the visionaries to pray thus:
Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. And by the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversion of poor sinners.
The angel then communicated the children, who imitated his acts of adoration. How much do we need to hear that angelic message today as thousands of Catholics approach the Holy Sacrament unworthily; as people receive Holy Communion as though in line at a supermarket and give no thought to what—or better, Whom—they are receiving; as priests find Hosts that have been taken in the hand and then discarded in missalettes, in holy water fonts and even in toilets.
As the Angel of Portugal led those three children to reverence and adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, we should pray that the whole heavenly court, led by Our Lady, would do the same for us as we enter into the “miracle of miracles” within a few short minutes, echoing the beautiful words of the Byzantine Liturgy: “Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-creating Trinity, set aside all earthly cares, that we may welcome the King of all, invisibly escorted by angelic hosts. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”
Our Lady, Queen of Angels, pray for us.
Endnotes:
1John Henry Newman, Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908), p. 305.
2Summa Theologiae, III, Q. 43, Art. 1.
3Ibid.
4“Miracles No Remedy for Unbelief,” PPS, pp. 86-87.
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In terms of how often miracles occurred over the time period covered, the New Testament would have many more miracles than the Old, as the Old covers thousands of years and the New a tiny fraction of that. In terms of references to the supernatural in the text, the Old Testament is permeated with the miraculous.
Besides all the accounts of the many Old Testament miracles everybody knows, there are those instances where God communicates directly with men, each one of which is a miraculous event. In the version of the Jerusalem Bible on my computer the phrase “God said” (or “Yahweh said”) appears in the text of the Old Testament 208 times. A miraculous revelation of God’s state of mind or God’s activity as expressed in the phrase “God was” (or “Yahweh was”) appears in the text 167 times. The word “angel” appears 146 times.
The perception of the pervasiveness of the miraculous in the Old Testament is quite accurate, not an effect of seeing it “through the prism of Cecil B. DeMille.”
The Old Testament is an account of the interaction of a divine being with natural beings. The divine side of that interaction was, of course, supernatural. That is to be expected, yet many modern Scripture scholars want to make into mere myths and legends God’s supernatural activity as recorded in the Old Testament, rather than just accepting the Old Testament, where the genre is history, for what it is: An account of God’s supernatural activity and man’s response to it. The Church’s tradition of such simple acceptance is demonstrated, for example, by Augustine, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Jerusalem in their belief in even the historicity of the Book of Jonah, which Augustine and Jerome defended against those who mocked and ridiculed that notion.
The dismissal of Old Testament miracles by modern scholars as myths and legends was followed by their lack of belief in even the New Testament miracles. Their scientific historical-critical method works great for all ancient texts except for those of the Bible where the genre is history. Those ancient texts really are an account of the true God’s interaction with mankind. They are filled with accounts of supernatural activity that really took place.
I was disappointed that Father did not prominently address the stupendous miracle at every valid
Mass when our Lord comes into our presence.
Trying to rediscover my Catholic faith through, with the help of my loving angels.
I am currently going through a rough patch in my life’s journey, and calling upon Archangel Raphael, and my guardian angel for help and guidance.
Daniel 12:1
At that time there shall arise Michael, the great prince, guardian of your people; It shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since the nation began until that time. At that time your people shall escape, everyone who is found written in the book.
There is only one ‘Cast Into Hell’ weapon, and that is Jesus’ lips binding sinners to their sins. Jesus blows the Holy Spirit upon His Apostles and swears to His Apostles that anyone whom they call upon Him from earth, to bind to sin, Jesus will do so from heaven. Catholic Anathema is Jesus’ lips binding sinners to their sins on earth.
John 20:20
At the sight of the Lord the disciples rejoiced. “Peace be with you,” he said again. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then he breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound.”
Revelation 1:16
A sharp, two-edged sword came out of his mouth, and his face shone like the sun at its brightest. When I caught sight of him I fell down at his feet as though dead, he touched me with his right hand and said: “There is nothing to fear. I am the First and the Last and the One who lives. Once I was dead but not I live– forever and ever. I hold the keys of death and the nether world.”
Isaiah 11:4 The Rule of Immanuel.
He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
If it is not Archangel Michael reading the Revelation 10 ‘The Angel with the small scroll’, then it is Michael leading the Angel to read the Revelation 10 ‘small scroll’. The Revelation 10 ‘small scroll’ is a list of, world wide, binding on all people, Catholic auto-anathemas. Catholic Anathema is the weapon of Combat Angel of the Apocalypse, St. Michael the Archangel, and his Angels. The Blessed Mother of Fatima assured the seer children that Archangel Michael will definitely be on earth during the coming Apocalypse that the Blessed Mother warned us about. Jesus is not King and Ruler of the world, until His Subjects, Apostolic Successors/Combat Angels of the Apocalypse, put His Laws into enforcement on earth. When they do, do so, Jesus is immediately enthroned as King and Ruler of the world. Under Messianic Reign, Jesus will Rule, with and through His Church, the Catholic Church.
Revelation 11:15
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet. There were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world now belongs to our Lord and to his Anointed, and he will reign forever and ever.’
http://www.apocalypseangel.com/married.html
ANATHEMA
In passing this sentence, the pontiff is vested in amice, stole, and a violet cope, wearing his mitre, and assisted by twelve priests clad in their surplices and holding lighted candles. He takes his seat in front of the altar or in some other suitable place, amid pronounces the formula of anathema which ends with these words: Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive N– himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate , so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment.”…
…He who dares to despise our decision, let him be stricken with anathema maranatha, i.e. may he be damned at the coming of the Lord, may he have his place with Judas Iscariot, he and his companions.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01455e.htm
J.M.J. The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917. (a portion)
we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’
Say for example, Michael is preoccupied on another task as appointed by God, do we take a number and wait? Our need may be of an urgent nature and what should we do in those circumstances.
Would it not be preferable to ask the one who laid down His sinless life to redeem us and calls us brother? Joy of joy, we are invited to come boldly to the throne of grace to bring our needs to Him.
Hebrews 4:16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Ephesians 3:12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
With brotherly love and appreciation.
“Say for example, Michael is preoccupied on another task as appointed by God, do we take a number and wait?”
You are using your natural mind to think about preternatural and supernatural things.
Dear Carl:
Yes, it is your pesky pal with protestations! You speak of the “natural mind” and that is problematic with me, more often than I would like! Natural vs supernatural, indisputably God is superior to nature for He created it.
Angles have supernatural powers that God has allotted to them as the Lord determines best. Yet, only God has full capacity to do all things according to His good pleasure. Scripture tells us that Michael had his limitations.
In the Old Testament there are four righteous men one of which was Daniel. Alas we do not have the faith, courage or love of God that categorized Daniel. Men are impatient and prone to lapses in confidence and acceptance of God’s word. Our saviour is the only one righteous in the New Testament and He is the only one in the Bible who can save others.
Daniel 10:10-14 And behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. 12 Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, 14 and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”
1 Peter 3:22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Colossians 2:10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
God bless you in your needed and appreciated endeavours.
Brian
“Pesky pal with protestations…” from (I’m-back-again) Brian Young. Damn, and here we thought that the biblical daze of “Old Brine in new whine skins” were behind us… We can agree (!), however: “…indisputably God is superior to nature for He created it.”
So, consider the not-too-“problematic” role of Mary (horrors!) in the historical and even biological fact that the incarnate Lord is “sustained by his own creation which he himself sustains in being” (St. Irenaeus, Treatise Against Heresies).
What’s this! The virgin birth, and therefore the prior and sinless Immaculate Conception?!
…easily to be understood as enabling real and totally new wine in real and totally new wine skins. This miracle/mystery is even scriptural: Mt 1:18-25 and Lk 1:26:38! Of course (!) not a second savior Jesus Christ, but both like us and also His unstained mother—without whose totally free consent (fiat!), no Incarnation!
Some, at least, consent to noticing and being amazed. With the facts then summarized in the Nicene Creed (two millennia prior to the gnats of pesky protestation). The Creed, an eyes-wide-open reflection and doctrinal affirmation—from the re-member-ing Church who also wrote the New Testament lines some doth so often splatter back to the Church, as on these CWR pages…
Yea verily, old plagiarism on new electronic wineskins?
One thing I would never do is minimize St. Michael and constrain myself into what I am already.
You have to be borderline Brian Young, or worse even, going around supposing you can get your mind around the Prince of Angels and trying to win a following on it, “because it’s more than natural”.
I can understand where Brian Young is coming from. Right or wrong, or in between, I have never felt comfortable petitioning a saint. Feels as if I do not have full confidence in Jesus, in God. Way back in high school, a priest called me his agnostic Catholic.
Consider this from a former atheist, who did experience miracles in his conversion process. And if anyone reading this can advise me on who commented or wrote extensively on grace accorded to souls prior to faith, feel free to advise me.
When I converted, I understood instantly (by grace) the Church Triumphant, recognizing our continuing connection in a very real sense to all those who went before us. The Church is a family that transcends time. It confounds haters of Catholicism that we practice a veneration of saints, distinct from worship, because we believe that God wants us to sustain a familial sense of what the Church is, which includes this special connection to all those who preceded us in their having lived holy lives.
Praying to a “patron saint” is somewhat like the equivalent to enhancing a relationship with a beloved perfect parent the way we might get together with siblings to discuss such things as getting the parent a gift. That discussion among siblings is also part of their relationship to the beloved parent. The same is true with the idea of prayers of intercession to those who have now joined the Communion of Saints. God desires that we expand our prayer life to where we relate our concerns continuously, on human levels, including conversations with saints who experienced similar struggles when their lives were in this vale of tears world. Having intercessors is hardly an act of slighting God. It is an extension of the relationship with God.
And I personally believe this conversation with those in “the Church Triumphant” also applies even to those not formally canonized. I pray for the repose of my deceased wife frequently, and I speak to her frequently, but I don’t think her kind soul ever needed much if any purgation. I believe there is a mystical way my intentions are expanded to all those many names I place on my All Souls List, now a month away.
Guess how many angels can dance on the end of a pin?
How big is the universe you cannot see?
How much does the sun weigh?
How much love does God have for lost sheep?
Just think it’s important to remember to pray daily at least once The Guardian Angel and St Michael The ArchAngel prayers. Father Rocky, Relevant Radio, recommends praying these prayers more than once during the day. Some churches pray the St Michael Prayer at the end of mass, don’t know why this it not a standard practice, it should be.
29th…What a Holy Day…..Bernadette and Trevor were Married on this Feast Day, in 1956! 66 years, NOT Out. from Trevor in New Zealand.
bernadette and Trevorm
This is a wonderful reflection by Fr Stravinkas. Thanks for posting it.
How we need St Michael now, princeps militia caelestis.
Defende nos in proelio…especially against the sin-nod of sin-nods.
St Michaels feast day always makes my birthday happier coincidentally.
Happy Birthday, Shawn Marshall!
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
The Zoroastrian origin of angels were manifestations of actions of a dynamic God against the Evil One and his demons. There were 6 main angels including the messenger of hope, the healer, the bringer of wisdom, bringer of grace, protector of toil and the protector of faith. Later the 6 were identified as in the points of the Star of David with the Messiah/Holy Spirit being at the center by the Kabbalah. Spinoza took it one step further by identifying the totality of the star itself as a symbol for the perfect, unchanging, unfathomable, awesome and eternal (static) God of all. How can God be static, dynamic and will his love for every human in the world since Eden? That’s the blessed mystery of the Trinity!
Regarding Father’s second last paragraph: If the Church required reception of the Eucharist while kneeling and on the tongue, much of the desecration would be eliminated.
I believe that the current practice is an example of the fact that the word “change” is not synonymous with the word “improvement.”
A difficulty in understanding the meaning of an angel, or divine messenger is that they’re pure spirit, and as such according to Aquinas do not have a specifying dynamic for singular identity as we do with the principle of matter. So they have a wider identity known as a species that performs an ordained function. Gabriel the announcer of divine messages, Raphael the healer, Michael the warrior prince adversary of evil.
When there’s evidence of appearance they reveal themselves as singular humanlike individuals. Apparently for human comprehension [the human intellect in this world knows the spiritual by analogy]. We have, each of us, a guardian angel. Fr Stravinskas describes their biblical history well, mentioning the gift of Guardian Angels. Evidence of God’s great love of us. Again, specificity is a question, however with God there’s no issue for providing spiritual protection against the wiles of our spiritual enemy Satan and his cohorts.
We hear tales of last minute decisions to take one roadway v another, cancellation of a flight, an infantry point man suddenly sensing danger ahead where the dirt road is already zeroed in for enemy mortar fire, a decisive moment to look at a chart from the Butler PA podium [do we all have guardian angels or are they reserved for faithful Catholics?]. Personally I’m delighted that Christ’s invincible Prince of battle Saint Michael will fiercely descend upon planet earth at the time of the Antichrist.
And during the (Novus Ordo) mass today, not a word about the Feast.
So terribly wrong!
The Sunday liturgy always takes precedence over a lower-ranking celebration. Nothing nefarious.
I replied to this earlier, but perhaps it didn’t go through.
A Sunday Mass cannot be trumped by a celebration of a lower rank. Hence, the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul, for instance, would supplant a “green” Sunday, but the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception would not supplant a Sunday in Advent or the Annunciation a Sunday in Lent.
An intriguing mystery, The Sword of Saint Michael. Not to be taken too seriously, rather with a sense of adventurous speculation and dash of entertaining fantasy. Though not adverse to brooding over.
“The St Michael’s Line or ‘St. Michael Alignment’ or ‘Sword of St. Michael’ is no doubt one of the most intriguing and prominent out of the numerous ley lines crisscrossing Europe and Middle East. This runs in straight line between Skellig Michael, the southwestern extremity of Ireland, and Mount Carmel located on Israel. While many researchers have tried to unlock its secrets, its full meaning still remains a mystery. Despite this, it continues to capture people’s attention with its unique mysterious pattern. The name is derived from the numerous sites that were dedicated to St. Michael that skirts or touches on its course that runs for 3500 miles. As well as from its orientation which is the sunrise’s direction on May 8, the date when the Apparition of St. Michael is celebrated by the Latin liturgy” (GREtour).
It was in relatively recent times that this phenomenon was discovered. Legend has it that the perfect delineation of seven monasteries, churches including Mont Saint-Michel France, sanctuaries signifies the crushing blow of St Michael on Satan. It’s possible that it could have been contrived through the years, although the dates and times of the number of ancient locales makes it appear unlikely. From a dire imaginative thought might the analogy of a ‘crevice’ suggest that Europe with its loss of faith has fallen through? Or does Europe-Israel, representative of the advent of Christ, the centre for the worldwide flowering of the Apostolic faith in Christ, now represent the flagpost marker for Saint Michael’s return for combat?