Good evening all! What a great feast we celebrate today, a marvelous day in the life of the Church in which we honor the only three angels named in the Bible- Michael, Gabriel and Rafael (all three are shown in the image below). Michael is the defender, Gabriel is the bearer of Good News and Raphael is the healer.
But so what, you may ask? What is the big deal? Well, it is a big deal since these Archangels are very powerful and want to help us in our day to day life. Michael is perhaps the most well known, since he defends us against the evil one. And we need so much help here, especially in these crazy times. This is why I've begun praying the St. Michael prayer at the end of each Mass with you. Gabriel is best known for bringing the Good News to young Mary when she conceived Jesus, although he does appear elsewhere in the Old and New Testaments. They key message he brings us is hope, hope that God is always walking with us and hope that we can be saved. And boy do we need hope today! Raphael is a great healer, as we see in the Book of Tobit, and who can deny that all of us individually, and our nation and world more generally, are in great need of healing?
So these are some great reasons why this feast day is important. But there are other reasons too. In our broken world, we tend to focus the negative aspects first rather than the positive. Just look at all of the interest in Satan, demons, exorcisms, etc. Why aren't people more fascinated in and interested in angels instead? After all, it is good that overcomes evil, as St. Paul teaches us (cf. Rom 12:21)! I'm often guilty of this myself, it is so easy to fall into. ANd guess what, it is Satan that wants us to focus on the darker side, not God. Therefore, this feast reminds us that we should be far more concerned with the myriads of angels (not just the Archangels) that are right there seeking to help us follow God and resist evil. We just need to reach out and accept their help. In just a few days, on Oct. 2, we will have the feast day of the Guardian Angels, and this is a reminder that every one of us has a unique, personal guardian angel. So let us reach out to our guardian angels and to all the other angels to help us fight the good fight. For further encouragement, I've included a link below to a great and brief article from a Dominican priest on the Archangels. Enjoy and God bless!
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