SAINT MICHAEL and ALL ANGELS (September 29)
and the GUARDIAN ANGELS (October 2)
Angels, as we all know perfectly well, are messengers of God, and they turn up throughout the Bible whenever God needs someone from Heaven to take a message to Earth. Sometimes they carry flaming swords and stand in the middle of the road, like Balaam’s donkey’s angel in the book of Numbers, or they might appear in the middle of the night with a huge number of fellow angels, like the shepherds’ angels in the book of Luke. They are generally described as dazzlingly bright to look at, in robes too white to be washed by any human detergent, but otherwise have no particular color. There are whole long lists of different kinds of angels: Thrones, Principalities, Virtues, etc. etc. We are told in the Bible that the ones who fly about the throne of God crying, “Holy! Holy! Holy!” have several pairs of wings, but the ones in Numbers and Luke aren’t reported as having any wings. In most pictures, though, just to make sure that you know who’s who – and maybe to show that they can fly from here to there – they are shown with wings.
It does seems as though, whenever an angel appears, the first message they have to deliver to us humans is “Fear not!” because we are always terrified by their stern, firey faces and their dazzling glow. These are angels that make people jump whenever they appear, because if you don’t believe what they tell you, you might end up like John the Baptist’s father Zacharias, unable to speak until their prophecy came true! If they say: “Get up, Joseph, and take the child and His mother to Egypt!” by golly, you get up and go!
Saint Michael and the other archangels, Raphael, Gabriel and Phanuel, each has had important jobs to do for God: Michael is supposed to lead angel armies against devils with the battle-cry “Who Is Like God?” and protects those in danger or who have to go to war. Raphael helped a boy named Tobit find a wonderful fish and brought health and wealth to his whole family. Gabriel, we’ll recall, was in charge of informing Zechariah that his son John would be something special, and of telling Mary something more important, still. Phanuel or Uriel is often shown with a censer, blessing everything around with the sweet scent of answered prayer.
Some angels, though, maybe because they don’t always make themselves visible, are not frightening at all. These are what are known as Guardian Angels. Some people have felt protected on dark streets by the presence of such a spirit. Apparently, Saint Peter had a guardian angel, because when he miraculously escaped from prison, his friends thought it was his angel at the door, not him! Sometimes, if you are afraid of your enemies or of the dark, you might ask the Guardian Angels to watch over you, as in that beautiful bedtime song from Humperdinck’s opera, “Hansel and Gretel” (originally in German) when our heroes are sleepy, and lost in the woods: “When at night I go to sleep, Fourteen angels watch do keep: Two my head are guarding, Two my feet are guiding, Two are on my right hand, Two are on my left hand, Two who warmly cover, Two who o’er me hover, Two to whom ‘tis given To guide my steps to Heaven.”