St.
Michael and All Angels
(1979 Book of Common Prayer Feast Day: Sept. 29)
The scriptural word “angel”
(Greek: angelos) means, literally, a messenger. Messengers
from God can be visible or invisible, and may assume human
or non-human forms. Christians have always felt themselves
to be attended by healthful spirits — swift, powerful, and
enlightening.
Those beneficent spirits are often depicted in Christian
art in human form, with wings to signify their swiftness
and spacelessness, with swords to signify their power, and
with dazzling raiment to signify their ability to
enlighten. Unfortunately, this type of pictorial
representation has led many to dismiss the angels as “just
another mythical beast, like the unicorn, the griffin, or
the sphinx.”
Of the many angels spoken of in the Bible, only four are
called by name: Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael. The
Archangel Michael is the powerful agent of God who wards
off evil from God’s people, and delivers peace to them at
the end of this life’s mortal struggle.
“Michaelmas,” as his feast is called in England, has long
been one of the popular celebrations of the Christian Year
in many parts of the world. Michael is the patron saint of
countless churches, including Mont Saint-Michel, the
monastery fortress off the coast of Normandy that figured
so prominently in medieval English history, and Coventry
Cathedral, England’s most famous modern church building,
rising from the ashes of the most devastating war of our
time.
Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a
wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals:
Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and
worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help
and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever. Amen.
— The Collect for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels