IN DEDICATIONE S. MICHAËLIS ARCHANGELI - Our Heavenly Protector

LESSON: St. Michael, sign of God’s fatherly protection.

The word, “angel”, literally means messenger of God. Throughout salvation history, the angels have announced God’s reign, truth, and power. However, they also have another critical role for our individual salvation – they watch over us. Even more so, they stand guard over God’s people. It is not good enough for the Lord to create the world out of nothing and craft us into being having an immortal soul. Like any good father, he sends protection for his children. St. Michael personifies this truth and stands watch over the hearts of God’s people. He has done so in the past, and he continues to do so now.

MI-CA-EL, or Who is like unto God? was the cry of the great Archangel when he smote the rebel Lucifer in the conflict of the heavenly hosts. From that hour he has been known as Michael, Captain of the armies of God, the archetype of divine fortitude, the champion of every faithful soul in strife with the powers of evil.

Ever since its foundation by Christ, the Church has venerated St. Michael as her special patron and protector. She invokes him by name in her Confiteor, when accusing her faults, and again as the incense is offered over the soon-to-be-consecrated sacred gifts; she summons him to the side of her children in the agony of death, and chooses him as their escort from the chastening flames of purgatory to the realms of holy light.

EXPLANATION: St. Michael, guardian of God’s people.

We’re likely all familiar with the passage from St. John’s Apocalypse where St. Michael leads the hosts of Heaven victoriously over the forces of Satan:

Douay-Rheims Bible Chapter 12

7 And there was a great battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels.

8 And they prevailed not: neither was their place found any more in heaven.

9 And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth: and his angels were thrown down with him.

St. Michael appears in Holy Scripture as the guardian of the children of Israel, their comfort and protector in times of sorrow or conflict. He it is who prepares for their return from the Persian captivity, who leads the valiant Maccabees to victory, and who rescues the body of Moses from the envious grasp of the Evil One.

When Antichrist shall have set up his kingdom on earth, it is Michael who will unfurl once more the standard of the Cross, sound the last trump, and binding together the false prophet and the beast, hurl them for all eternity into the burning pool.

IMPLICATION: Invoking St. Michael

St. Michael has served as the heavenly protector of the People of God from the beginning of time, as sign of God’s fatherly care and concern for us.

I imagine most if not all of us here invoke St. Michael regularly in our daily prayers, though sadly, not all Catholics do, and while we call upon his heavenly protection at the end of every Low Mass, in many places, praying for his intercession after Mass is prohibited.

Therefore, we need to pray all the more for his protection over God’s Church, especially at this time when error and heresy abound, and the Church’s enemies are persecuting Her from without and from within.

However, there is another way of honouring St. Michael, and the fatherly care God gives by sending him to us, and that is by imitating him. How do we imitate an angel, a being of a completely different character from us, by imitating his virtue.

Many theologians believe that at the moment of their creation, the angels were subjected to a test, in order to be allowed into the heavenly realms, and those that failed were cast down into Hell. In this test, God revealed His plan of salvation, to unite Himself with human nature, and to elevate human nature above angelic nature.

As beings of pure spirit, the angels are exempt from many sins, they cannot feel lust, or avarice, or become gluttonous or slothful, but they can be envious and prideful, and this was Satan’s downfall, while St. Michael and the heavenly legion of angels who defeated him embraced humility.

As we celebrate this Holy Mass, and as Christ comes to us in the Holy Eucharist, another sign of God’s loving care for His people, let us ask for the grace, not only of St. Michael’s protection, but that we might imitate him in his humility.