Chapel of St. Michael and the Angels

Click on the picture for information on Michael

With Angels and Archangels and all the company of Heaven, we join in the unending Hymn of Praise.

Cherub looking up
Eternal Lord God who has ordered and ordained the service of Michael and the angels, grant me their protection and defence, that I might be better prepared to discern and fight the devil and all his works, following the way of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen

It is worth remembering, if we worship God on our own, that in fact we do so;
with the whole company of heaven

Michael is recorded in the Bible as an Archangel who overcomes the Devil.

In Daniel in the Old Testament and here in Revelation chapter 12

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. There are lots of other angels in the Bible, apparently male and not described except as being clothed in white

Guardian Angels are found in Matthew Chp 18 v10 where Jesus says:
Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I say to you that in heaven, their (Guardian) angels are always in the presence of my Father

There are also lots of Angel Pages on the Web and mostly the pictures show angels as attractive females or near naked little boys, whereas the Bible says:

Standard Cherub Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
(Matthew Chp 22 vs 29,30.)

In other words, although we might retain our gender, we shall be sexless. So those little cherubs have little wispy clouds or strips of cloth around their legs, not to cover what they have, but to cover the fact that they have not!! There is no sexual activity in heaven. Likewise, Angels as created beings should not have navels. (Just by the way: I remember a riddle from junior school in the forties which asked how one might recognise Adam in Heaven: he hasn't got a belly button). As to Angels' wings they are perhaps a metaphor for the fact that Angels "fly" between Earth and Heaven, and Heaven is, by tradition, up in the sky.

I rather like the way C.S. Lewis imagined the dwellers of heaven in The Great Divorce:

Because they were bright I saw them when they were still very distant, and at first I did know that they were people at all. Mile after mile they drew nearer. The earth shook under their tread as their strong feet sank into the wet turf........Some were naked some were robed. But the naked ones did not seem less adorned, and the robes did not disguise in those who wore them the massive grandeur of muscle and the radiant smoothness of flesh. Some were bearded but no one in that company struck me as being of any particular age. One gets glimpses, even in our country, of that which is ageless - heavy thought in the face of an infant, and frolic childhood in that of a very old man. Here it was all like that.

......................

On one of the rocks sat a very tall man, almost a giant, with a flowing beard. I had not yet looked one of the solid people in the face. Now, when I did so, I discovered that one sees them with a kind of double vision. He was an enthroned and shining god, whose ageless spirit weighed upon mine like a burden of solid gold: and yet, at the very same moment, here was a weather beaten old man, one who might have been a shepherd.

When contemplating Heaven, the place of the spirit, we have to try and extract ourselves from Earthly presumptions. Time is perhaps the most difficult to unthink and grasp Eternity, because we also need to unthink before and after. I shall not attempt that. However what spirits and angels "look" like is a little easier because we are familiar with the fact that it is our brain (mind?) which sees rather than our eyes. Who, when driving, has not fancied there to be a dog lying in the road ahead which turns out to be a plastic bag. And like Lewis, who has not seen beauty in the face of someone who is not handsome, recognising it to be a feature of their soul. So we can accept traditional pictures as a metaphor only. It makes them no less real. There are many reports of people "seeing" traditional looking Angels who did some very real things.

See Also Rev. Douglas Graham on Angels Or, there is detailed information in the Catholic Encyclopaedia

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