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The Archangel Michael is the
primordial champion of God's unsurpassed, unsurpassable, incomparable
and sublime Holiness of Being, while at the same time he supports us in
striving to be holy. For, as St Paul reminded the people of Athens gathered in
the marketplace of the words of one of their writers and poets (Epimenides;
Aratus, Phaenomena, 5): “In him we
live and move and have our being... For we are indeed his offspring” (Acts
17:28). In order to be sustained in this perspective, although the prayer to St
Michael introduced by Pope Leo XIII in 1866 is no longer said at the end of
every low Mass, it is certainly worth reciting this prayer in our private
devotions, as I do daily:
Holy
Michael the Archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict,
be
our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil;
may
God restrain him, we humbly pray;
and
do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by
the power of God, cast down to hell
Satan
and all the wicked spirits
who
wander through the world for the ruin of souls.
In Book XI of his great epic Paradise Lost, the poet John Milton introduces the Archangel
Michael as having the divinely entrusted role of driving out of Paradise “the
sinful Pair”, proclaiming “to their Progenie from thence /Perpetual banishment,”
while guarding with “Cherubim / Thy choice of flaming Warriors” Eden’s vacated
domain of delights against invasion by “the Fiend” or re-entry by the expelled
human creatures. However, the entire compass of God’s ordinance to this “Prince
above Princes” does not end there, as Milton magnificently continues:
Yet least they faint
At the sad Sentence rigorously urg'd,
For I behold them softn'd and with tears
Bewailing thir excess, all terror hide.
If patiently thy bidding they obey,
Dismiss them not disconsolate; reveale
To Adam what shall come in future dayes,
As I shall thee enlighten, intermix
My Cov'nant in the womans seed renewd;
So send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace [Bk XI, lines 108-117].
At the sad Sentence rigorously urg'd,
For I behold them softn'd and with tears
Bewailing thir excess, all terror hide.
If patiently thy bidding they obey,
Dismiss them not disconsolate; reveale
To Adam what shall come in future dayes,
As I shall thee enlighten, intermix
My Cov'nant in the womans seed renewd;
So send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace [Bk XI, lines 108-117].
Michael was thus to present to fallen Adam and Eve
(representing all humankind) that all is not lost, but that God in his mercy
would send a Saviour whose coming will show the divine providential design that
could never be thwarted: rather, that good would triumph one day over evil.
Michael is the herald of true hope eternal, thus being, as Milton points out in
keeping with traditional Christian faith, the bringer of the first ray of light
to the human sin-darkened intelligence, which was allured by the false promise
of Satan, whose obdurate pride deprived him of his privileged state as the
once-brightest spirit of heaven – Lucifer, whom Milton poignantly calls
“darkness visible” (Book I). While depicting Michael as heralding hope in the
mystery of the Incarnation, Milton presents this archangel as wisely
counselling the progenitors of the human race to wait in patience, to persevere
and to entrust themselves utterly to God’s unrelenting saving outreach of
wisdom, rather than to despair through merely letting themselves be deceived by
the woeful apparent consequences of their sin. No advice could have been more
sound to the depressed condition of those two and all deceived human beings; it
was about not allowing oneself to be taken in and seduced again by the
immediacy of attractive appearances, which was how they fell into error and
would have continued to blunder more seriously if they were to abandon hope in
the almighty hidden ways of God’s wisdom. Their descendants had to learn this
hope and grow gradually in trust through patience and persevering waiting for
the unfolding of the divine Mystery of Love in successive stages through the
history of salvation until the coming into the world of Christ Jesus, the
Redeemer of humankind. He uniquely, as the “true Light of the world” and “the
Image of the Invisible God,” is the unique paradigm of “the New Man.”
This, in brief, is the important place and role of the
Archangel Michael in regard to the spiritual wellbeing of humankind, a
wellbeing that is realised not without struggle and endurance, which are
achieved by the above mentioned virtues of patience and perseverance, that
themselves bespeak and are the outflow of a longing, that unquenchable yearning
or thirst etched into the heart of humanity which resembles though faintly the
divine desire (eros) of eternal Love
Itself.
It is this longing for and of God that becomes freshly
awakened, stirred and quickened into a soul-thrilling delight in the heart of
the Virgin Mary, the Second Eve, who hears and responds to the announcement to
her by her mysterious visitor, the Archangel Gabriel, who proclaims that the
Fruit of her womb is Emmanuel –
“God-with-us” – Jesus, “the joy of man’ desiring.” Gabriel, whose name means
“God’s strength,” thus fortifies us by revealing at the Annunciation that our hope
in God is strongly, indomitably unshakable and real in the Mystery of the
Incarnation.
This Mystery is continued in the Eucharistic “mystery
of faith” whereby the WORD BECOMES EUCHARIST. In a following blog the theme of
the healing and reconciling power of the Eucharistic Word will be developed, in
accordance with the significance of the name of the third great archangel,
Raphael – “God heals.”
˜ ™
