Today, with great joy, we celebrate the feast of the Archangels: St Michael, St Gabriel and St Raphael. We know of the three archangels from Scripture, about the special tasks to which they were appointed. St Michael the Archangel went to battle against Satan and his demons and cast them out of heaven. We heard about Michael leading this war against the forces of evil in our reading from the Book of Revelation. St Raphael cured Tobit’s of his blindness in the book of Tobit in the Old Testament. St Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive a child by the Holy Spirit, and that he would be God’s own son.
I remember when I served as pastor of St James parish in Tupelo, when I was visiting the first communion class one Sunday, one of the students asked me about the difference between angels and archangels. What a wonderful question. Angels are spiritual beings who are special messenger for God. Archangels are a high rank of angels. Archangels are given the most important messages that must be delivered to humans. In many ways, both angels and archangels remain mysterious beings to us humans, as we still know relatively little about them.
Traditionally in the Catholic Church, we hold a BLUE MASS in conjunction with the feast of the Archangels for our police and our first responders, as St Michael the Archangel is their patron saint. I know that my parish of Holy Savior in Clinton and St Jude in Pearl are reaching out to the police officers and fire fighters in our cities to let them know that we are praying for them in a special way today. We pray that St Michael keep them safe and protect them as they serve our communities.
As we celebrate the Archangels in a special way today, let us unite our prayers with the prayers of St Michael, St Gabriel, and St Raphael.
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