Today, we celebrate the feast day of the three archangels –
Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael. We’ve
been celebrating the feast day of these three archangels together since 1970,
when their feast days were combined together in the revised Roman calendar
after the Second Vatican Council.
In our first
reading today from the book of Revelation, we hear about a war that breaks out
in heaven, with Michael the Archangel leading the battle against the Devil, who
is depicted as a dragon. Sometimes in
our lives it may seem like we are in the middle of a war that is fought by the
angels who are on the side of God as they battle against the demons and the
evil spirits who seem intent on getting us. Michael is seen as the Archangel leading us in
battle against those evil forces, so he is the patron saint of police officers,
soldiers, paratroopers, and fighter pilots.
In a homily he
gave, Pope Gregory the Great clarified that the word “angel” denoted a function
rather than a nature. He notes that the
holy spirits of heaven have always been spirits, but they are called angels
when they serve the function as messengers of God, when they deliver some
message for him. Angels are those who
deliver message of lesser importance, while Archangels are those spirits who
proclaim messages of supreme importance, such as when the Archangel Gabriel
visited the Blessed Virgin Mary, to tell her that she was with child, that she
would deliver the Son of God.
I know it is
popular in our secular world today to believe in angels as well, to have a
belief in the divine messages that they deliver to us. May we give thanks for the angels and
archangels today. In our preface before
starting the Eucharistic prayer in the mass, we proclaim that we join the angels
and archangels in their song of praise to the Lord. May we truly feel the praise that we proclaim
to the Lord in connection with these heavenly spirits.
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