Today is the Feast of the Apparition of St. Michael the Archangel, in the Traditional Calendar.
You might remember that St. Michael appeared on the top of a mountain in S. Italy, along the back of the “ankle” of the “boot”, called Gargano. He appeared with a flaming sword on the eve of a battle in 663. That was one of several apparitions. I was at the shrine of the apparition just about one year ago.
Michael has another feast in the traditional calendar, 29 September. In the Novus Ordo all three archangels named in Scripture are celebrated that day. In the Traditional calendar, St. Raphael and St. Gabriel have their own days: respectively 24 October and 24 March. Of course all the Holy Guardian angels are celebrated on 2 October.
Today in the readings for the Feast, we hear of the first part of the Book of Revelation, which tells us that God has assigned angels to mind cities. In the Gospel we hear Christ say that the children have angels who see the face of God. Great writers of the Church have proposed that everything in the cosmos that moves has an angel assigned to it. There are myriads upon countless myriads of unfallen angels who serve God, each angel being his own substance, as different from every other angel as aardvarks are from zebras.
Pray to your Guardian Angels!
Pray to the Archangels!
Think of how many times the angels are invoked during the Traditional Form of Mass. And at the end of Low Mass, we should say the Prayer to St. Michael.
Some years ago I posted some marvelous “inculturation” art by Catholic artist Daniel Mitsui: St. Michael the Archangel as a samurai kicking the devil’s back side. Very cool. It is striking, in it’s woodblock style and colors.
He has now reprinted it. The original drawing of St. Michael is on Japanese washi. The giclee print (below) is on Hahnemuhle cotton rag paper
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I put on my “Who Is Like God?” St. Michael t-shirt (made by someone I learned of from Fr. Z), not knowing about the day’s feast. Perfect! I also love the Daniel Mitsui painting.
Somebody needs to make an appropriate heavy metal album to go with that first Saint Michael pic…
“And at the end of Low Mass, we should say the Prayer to St. Michael.”
As we do in the Diocese of Knoxville (at the direction of our bishop) after every Mass, high or low, TLM or Novus Ordo (as I understand, not having witnessed personally the latter). After a traditional Latin sung Mass, we kneel for the St. Michael prayer immediately following the closing Marian anthem.
I love that Daniel Matsui print. It must be fantastic in person. What a talent.
The St. Michael Prayer: Don’t leave home or Mass without it.
My avatar is my new tatto on my left inner forearm. Some color added. St Michael, save us!
I say the Pope Leo prayers after every Mass even when the priest doesn’t. Nothing stopping others from doing the same.
“He appeared with a flaming sword…”
Just curious, did he have a (fake) “joyful” and “peaceful” smile on his face when he appeared?
Was he singing kumbaya while strumming his guitar and showing effeminate affection to his microphone? Did he happen to say anything about God “lov[ing] like a hurricane” while humans are trees “bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy”?
Probably not.
The reason I ask is because one of the current heresies being propagated is the following: “you know that something is ‘of the Spirit of God’ by its fruits [only a partial truth; some “fruits” are unseen, while apparent fruits on the outside are merely fake and fraudulent]. The fruits of the Spirit are joy, peace, etc. Therefore [people wrongly conclude], if St. Michael the Archangel appeared with [righteous] anger, he quite clearly was not from God.”
That is a major heresy currently being propagated.
And so, if a man shows “toxic masculinity” – perhaps having the face of a bull dog and the demeanor of a rottweiler, probably similar to what God Himself refers to as a “boanerges” – he is automatically considered “not of God”.
Nope. You see, some of God’s faithful servants are indeed boanerges. I suspect St. Michael the Archangel most often appears with a boanerges demeanor.