Feast Day: Michael, Gabriel & Raphael, Archangels

Come, let us worship the lord in the company of his angel.....

This is the antiphon at the beginning of the Office of Readings in today's 'Liturgy of the Hours'. It is the Feast Day of the Archangels.

I love angels, they never cease to amaze me. There's something about their mystic nature, true servants of God that draws me to wanting to know more about them. They are God's personal messengers.

When my wife and I were first married, we really didn't have a place in our lives (so we thought) for God. Though I was born Catholic, I didn't practice the faith in my life much. My new bride was an off and on church goer. We at first, would switch off Sunday's going once to her Christian church and maybe the next Sunday going to a local Catholic Church. After a while we stopped attending all together.

A few years into our marriage, and a couple of kids later, we felt a sort of yearning, I don't know, like something was missing.

I wanted the kids to be brought up in the Catholic faith and my wife went along with that.

We would go as a family to church every Sunday, but she didn't much participate and frankly I didn't explain things to her very much. I was just happy that we were attending Church again. Soon our first child was in CCD (Sunday School) and received her first communion.

It became a nagging thought of my wife, while seeing my children and I going to communion, that she couldn't receive with us.

I don't know how it actually happened, but I think we were at a local bookstore (my wife and I are avid readers) and she bought a book on Angels (Angel and Demons: What Do We Really Know About Them?).

That was it...after that my wife's faith journey was on fire! She read every thing she could get here hands on Angels.

God's angels bringing His message to my wife...

Another book she read as 'Where Angels Walk' by Joan Wester Anderson'

In the book of Tobit or Tobias (Tb 11:7-15) we read about ArchangelRaphael talking to Tobias.

My favorite is in the book of Revelations (Rev 12:7-9), Michaels battle with Satan and the Annunciation in the Gospel of Luke (Lk1:26-38).

You can read more on the Churches teaches of Angels in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 328-354).

Prayer to St. Michael a the Archangel

Saint Michael the Archangel,defend us in battle.Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -by the Divine Power of God -cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.