Homily for Feast of the Archangels

Homily for the Feast of the Archangels

Sept. 29, 2021
Collect
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

According to today’s Collect, God marvelously arranges both angelic and human ministries.  Ps 8 may say that we’re created little less than the angels (v. 6), but we’re pretty nearly equal—thanks above all to God’s Son, who elevated our human nature.

The Collect petitions that “those who watch over us” may defend us while we’re on this earth, still on pilgrimage toward their eternal home, which God means to makes ours as well.  So the Book of Revelation portrays Michael as our defender against “the accuser,” Satan (12:10).  The pious fiction of Tobit describes Raphael as Tobias’s angelic guide and Tobit’s healer.

Besides that role, angels minister perpetually to God in heaven, the Collect says.  If you’ve ever seen movies with medieval royal pageantry, you can picture dozens of minions standing about a throne room, hoping for some opportunity to please their king or obtain some royal favor.  Daniel says that in his vision “myriads upon myriads attended” the Ancient One (7:9-10).

Jesus tells Nathanael that he’ll see “the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man”—serving him, in other words (John 1:51).

God has marvelously disposed that the angels not only should minister to him in heaven but that they should be our protectors and helpers.  Why so?  So that we, little less than the angels, elevated by the Son of Man, might join them in the heavenly court:  “in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise; I will worship at your holy temple and give thanks to your name” (Ps 138:1-2).

Photo: St. Michael (Collegiate Church of St. Waltrude, Mons, Belgium)