St. Michael and All Angels

Saint Michael and All Angels 2013 (John 1:47-51)

“You will see heaven opened…”

Eternal life starts now.

Eternal life begins at the baptismal font and is nourished at the altar of sacrifice.

Most forms of religion speak of God, Heaven, salvation or eternal life as a future reward for present actions. Most forms of religion, including many forms of Christianity, use the language of debits and credits, the language of rewards and punishments to frame the reality of God.

Jesus uses the language of relationship.

Jesus reveals and embodies the reality that the One God is a relationship of three persons. Moses and the prophets help us understand that we as a species have willfully and spitefully chosen to separate from God. In that separation we experience profound distortions in our mind, heart and will. Those distortions result in sin and death.

Jesus reveals that salvation from sin and death is organic and relational. Jesus is the second Adam, the new man, who restores the original pattern of love and holiness to our species. Salvation from sin and death is the gift of a new life and a new way of living.

The gift of salvation is universal and unconditional. Jesus is the pattern of a way of being human that restores the broken relationship with God, each other and the image of God imprinted on our souls.

To use modern evangelical language- we are saved as individuals  but immediately grafted into the Body of Christ. In the Body of Christ, the Church, we enter into a set of relationships.

The first relationship is the life of the infinite and eternal Triune God. Jesus, the co-eternal Son of God, reunites us to God the Father and transforms us by God the Holy Spirit.

It is in that new relationship that we receive the gift of eternal life.

As the Body of Christ we are also placed in a set of relationships within the wider church. The wider church includes the saints of the Church Triumphant. The saints pray for us. Preeminent among the saints is Holy Mother Mary. She not only prays for us she channels additional grace to us from the superabundance of grace she receives from God.

In addition to the saints of the church Triumphant are the souls of the Church Expectant. They pray for us and rely on our prayers to grow in grace as they prepare for the resurrection. We are not permitted to communicate with them or they with us. Our prayers reassure, comfort and encourage them to release their attachment to the distortions of sin and to grow in love and holiness.

The third part of the church is the Church Militant. That is us. We have been given the assignment to work and pray for the salvation and sanctification of souls. As a living community of Faith we gather to express and experience the threefold aspect of eternal love. That threefold aspect of eternal love is worship, charity and personal transformation.

As the Body of Christ we are also supported by the angels. God created innumerable angels before He created the material universe of matter, energy time and space. Theologians perceive nine different kinds, species, of angels organized in three sets of three.

There are seraphim, cherubim and thrones. Principalities, powers and dominions. Virtues, archangels and angels. Of the nine types of angels, sometimes referred to as the nine choirs of angels, only two have direct relationships with human beings: archangels and angels.

God has appointed these classes of spiritual to be servants of the children of God in Christ.

Some theologians speculate that Lucifer rejected the plan for the pure angelic spirits to leave the transcendent realm of Heaven to serve the corporeal beings God created in the material universe. Lucifer wanted these angels to serve him, not us.

Jesus teaches that we each have a guardian angel. This angel is a veteran from the war in Heaven against Lucifer. Guardian angels guard us from the influence of the fallen angels. They also pray for us, encourage us and stand by us. No Christian is ever alone. We are part of the Body of Christ encompassing the Church Triumphant, the Church Expectant and the Church Militant.

We each have a Guardian Angel who protects us and encourages us to grow in grace.

St. Michael has a very important role in the Plan of Salvation. He is the general of the angelic armies. We see in the book of the prophet Daniel that Michael is the guardian angel of the nation of Israel. He is also the Guardian Angel of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

We do not pray to the angels or saints. We can ask them to pray for us, to encourage us in the Communion of the Saints and to channel their own unique reflected grace into our souls.

The Ministry of Angels is the ministry of the Bridegroom’s servants. They help to prepare us spiritually to be who God the Father created us to be: the Bride of Christ, the personal and intimate friends of the co-eternal Son of God.

The preeminent service angels offer is to encourage us to enter into the Real Presence of God at the altar of Sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence, Sunday.

Angels are unique manifestations of Divine Love. They encourage us to come to church. They stand with us and surround us at the altar of sacrifice in the very pattern of worship they experience in the transcendent realm of heaven.

The Holy Spirit specifically uses our angelic servants to help us grow and transform in the highest form of love: worship. It is through worship that we experience the reality of eternal life here and now. The greatest most profound and transforming blessing available to us is here at the altar of sacrifice.

The angels in heaven rejoice when a soul makes a real choice to receive reunification with Divine Love in the waters of baptism. St. Michael the Archangel and our own personal Guardian Angel rejoice as the baptized in the Church Militant make a real choice to experience the total immersion of the soul in Divine Love at the altar of sacrifice.

The angels guide us very specifically to this place at this time to experience the blessing of Real Presence and see heaven opened for us here and now and forever. Amen.