There seems to be several feasts around this time in honour of the Angels. In the ordinary Catholic calender, Gabriel and Raphael have been combined with yesterday's traditional Michaelmas (from which the university term derives its name) for St Michael the Archangel. Then on Tuesday we celebrate the Guardian Angels.The name Michael is Hebrew and means "who is like to God?" and recalls the battle in heaven between the goodies and baddies, due to Lucifer's rebellion, which continues down the ages. So many of our modern day myths are based on this struggle between good and evil, light and dark. What I love about St Michael the Archangel, is he is the 'top dog' in that struggle, the standard-bearer, who leads us into heaven and is therefore represented in our Tradition as holding the scales of divine justice. He also presides over our worship with God, as he is the angel seen in heaven by St John, standing near the altar of God with a golden censor in his hand. He offers the prayers of the Faithful to God like the rising of sweet incense. If you click on St Michael on my side bar (towards the bottom) you will be able see a wonderful prayer addressed to him. A very holy priest told me recently to pray this every day, and be wary of the attacks which the devil will make on my family.
But what is an angel? The word is derived from the Latin angelus and the Greek aggelos, but in Hebrew means "one going" or "one sent." It is a celestial or heavenly being in the Latin, as distinct from a human messenger. However, the Hebrew uses the two terms indifferently. This may help to explain why I have always called my wife an angel, since in a very real way she has led my life towards a wonderful light, and I feel she was sent by God to do this for me. Apparently a better latinization would be to call her a nuntius, which quickly loses my original poetic intention!
With regards to heavenly angels, which it now seems fashionable for everyone to think sweetly of, there is a wonderful entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Here is an extract from the closing paragraph; a summary of the role angels have played in salvation history:It is easy for skeptical minds to see in these angelic hosts the mere play of Hebrew fancy and the rank growth of superstition, but do not the records of the angels who figure in the Bible supply a most natural and harmonious progression? In the opening page of the sacred story of the Jewish nation is chose out from amongst others as the depositary of God's promise; as the people from whose stock He would one day raise up a Redeemer. The angels appear in the course of this chosen people's history, now as God's messengers, now as that people's guides; at one time they are the bestowers of God's law, at another they actually prefigure the Redeemer Whose divine purpose they are helping to mature. They converse with His prophets, with David and Elias, with Daniel and Zacharias; they slay the hosts camped against Israel, they serve as guides to God's servants, and the last prophet, Malachi, bears a name of peculiar significance; "the Angel of Jehovah." He seems to sum up in his very name the previous "ministry by the hands of angels", as though God would thus recall the old-time glories of the Exodus and Sinai. The Septuagint, indeed, seems not to know his name as that of an individual prophet and its rendering of the opening verse of his prophecy is peculiarly solemn: "The burden of the Word of the Lord of Israel by the hand of His angel; lay it up in your hearts." All this loving ministry on the part of the angels is solely for the sake of the Saviour, on Whose face they desire to look. Hence when the fullness of time was arrived it is they who bring the glad message, and sing"Gloria in excelsis Deo". They guide the newborn King of Angels in His hurried flight into Egypt, and minister to Him in the desert. His second coming and the dire events that must precede that, are revealed to His chosen servant in the island of Patmos, It is a question of revelation again, and consequently its ministers and messengers of old appear once more in the sacred story and the record of God's revealing love ends fittingly almost as it had begun: "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches."How glorious that every baptised Christian is entrusted to a guardian angel; "Behold I will send My angel, who shall go before thee, and keep thee in thy journey, and bring thee unto the place that I have prepared" (Exodus 23:20) and that, when all is done, our angel will say (in the words of J.H. Newman's Dream of Gerontius):
My work is done,
My task is o'er,
And so I come,
Taking it home,
For the crown is won,
Alleluia,
For evermore!
My task is o'er,
And so I come,
Taking it home,
For the crown is won,
Alleluia,
For evermore!
That's one of the nicest posts I've read in a while. Thanks Matt.
ReplyDeleteThat's nice seeing your wife an angel...she is that!
ReplyDeleteI expect you realize that the statue of St Michael you illustrate comes from the medieval Anglican church at South Creake in Norfolk. It is a lovely figure, but surely you could have found plenty of even better Catholic examples?
ReplyDeleteanonymous: both of those photos come from, as you say, the Anglican church at South Creake in Norfolk. I am aware of this because I took the photos. I would much rather include these than some googled Catholic images, however pretty. How unecumenical of you to disapprove!! I expect you are aware that the wonderful wooden angels set in the rafters were raised to celebrate Henry V's victory at Agincourt in 1415. 17th century cromwell roundheads used these angels for target practice, but they were restored to their former glory in 1958.
ReplyDeleteThe oldest part of this church was built in the 1200s and to disregard such gems because they are now 'Anglican' makes us as bad as the reformers at cutting ourselves off from our heritage. Many of these churches have patrons who are trying to reverse the damage inflicted on them down the centuries of protestant England. This sort of endeavour is to be commended, and hopefully the restorers will uncover more than bricks and mortar, and find those rays of apostolic faith which these buildings were built upon.
Fair comment. But if you knew the creepy world that made the church at South Creake what it is outwardly I am not sure you would be so enthusiastic. The statues and restoration were accomplished in the 1930s by a weird episcopus vagans who was also an Anglican clergymen who tried to run a shady seminary in the village. When you encounter Anglo-Catholicism it is easy to be beguiled by the beauty and good taste but the more you discover about the life behind it the deeper you descend into a can of worms. If you want really magnificent statues of St Michael go to medieval Germany.
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