By DEB PIROCH
Where there is evil, there is the Devil, and where there is good, there is God. It is high time for the world to make this connection in an era when the family unit is rapidly dying, leading to all sorts of destruction. Some children don’t even know their parents, angry teens engage in gang violence, and many overall have a birth control mentality, which fails and leads then to abortion, death, and pain.
To rectify evil God must come first, and St. Michael is His staunch advocate. Scripture tells us Michael, whose name means “he who is like God,” has four roles: to fight Satan, rescue us from the Devil, especially at the hour of death, uphold the Church, and bring souls to judgment. He is a saint not in the sense of a canonized human saint, but in the sense that he is holy (from the Latin “sanctus”).
St. Michael the Archangel led all the angels in battle against Lucifer and the fallen angels and, in choosing God, chose his eternity, as well. As most well know, he is generally shown as a warrior, dressed in armor with a lance, and the dragon beneath his feet.
There are some biblical references to St. Michael, my favorite being in Revelation:
“And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (12:7-9).
We know that God will triumph, and we are always to hope, but we must also be prepared to fight. After all, we are called the Church Militant. Pope Leo XIII had a fearful vision during his celebration of the Mass during the 1880s. While we do not know for certain what he saw, some report that he witnessed a conversation between Christ and Satan:
Satan says to Jesus: “I can destroy your Church.”
Jesus replies: “You can? Then go ahead and do so.”
Satan: “To do so, I need more time and more power.”
Jesus: “How much time? How much power?”
Satan: “75 to 100 years, and a greater power over those who will give themselves over to my service.”
Jesus: “You have the time, you will have the power. Do with them what you will.”
The Pope thereupon immediately composed the St. Michael prayer and determined that it be recited after every low Mass throughout the world. I happen to attend a small church in western Pennsylvania named for St. Michael, where the prayer is still incorporated into each and every Mass. But many churches long ago sadly dropped the prayer.
During the Middle Ages St. Michael’s feast was a holy day of obligation, September 29, and in England it was a date for feasting and settling of accounts. Hence the term, “Michaelmas,” which including the roasting of a lovely goose.
St. Michael was one of the voices that St. Joan of Arc regularly heard. There are also two visions of St. Michael that are known, one in Monte Gargano, Italy and the other in Normandy. The former was near where Padre Pio lived, occurring centuries earlier, in 492. In an abbreviated version of the story, he appeared and attested the cave there was sacred to him and requested that it be dedicated to him by the bishop. The bishop delayed, as the location was high up the mountain and surrounded by pagans. In the meantime, the area was attacked by invaders from Naples.
After three days of prayer and fasting, St. Michael appeared again, saying their enemies would be defeated. They were, and the bishop immediately went to consecrate the chapel. But when they arrived, St. Michael appeared a final time, saying that as he had founded the grotto, he had consecrated it, but welcomed them inside. Miraculously, when they went in, an altar with a cross already stood, with his footprint inside. The bishop offered the first Mass. Padre Pio became a great devotee of St. Michael and the grotto.
The other famous vision relates to the majestic Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, which was founded in 708. St. Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, had a vision of St. Michael, asking Aubert to build a church in his honor. Discrediting the dream, the future saint went about his business but St. Michael appeared to him in a second dream. Thinking the dream could be from the Devil (though that would be odd certainly), he again ignored St. Michael. Finally, St. Michael appeared a third time to Aubert and knocked him on the head with his finger to urge him to build the church. Michael left a hole in the saint’s skull, and today this relic remains at the St. Gervais Basilica of Avranches.
St. Aubert had been told to build where they would find a stolen bull, and indeed, they located the animal where they’d been told. But when done, there was no relic for the altar! Again St. Michael appeared, urging a trip to the grotto at Monte Gargano, where he had left his footprint. The Italian church gave them a piece of it, which reportedly worked miracles even on its way back to France.
St. Aubert was buried at the church, which over time became the Mont-Saint-Michel of today, but his relics were scattered during the French Revolution. That the relic of his skull remains at all is thanks to a physician, Louis-Julien Guérin. He used his profession as a pretext to say he wanted to study the skull, thus saving it in 1792. When life was safe again, he returned it to the clergy.
Some believe that the skull shows signs that the hole was bored and not miraculously made. But who is to say? Surely, God may use Saints Aubert and Michael however He wishes to bring souls closer to Him.
An interesting article in the Catholic Encyclopedia explains the debate over where St. Michael fits in the hierarchy of angels. St. Thomas Aquinas felt that he was the prince of the last choir, the angels, though an archangel. Others, like St. Robert Bellarmine, thought as an archangel he ruled over all classes of angels. Ultimately, where St. Michael fits and many other questions remain mysteries for us now.
One thing is for certain. Today we must remind ourselves to employ good habits, one of them being the use of holy ejaculations. When we feel tempted in some way, or frightened, simply say, “St. Michael save me!” Ask that he keep the Devil at bay. When bookstores are carrying sections now on witchcraft, and areas of our cities and towns are becoming dangerous and filled with drugs, one of the most powerful advocates we have whenever we need help spiritually or otherwise is St. Michael — and also our guardian angel.
St. Alphonsus Liguori once said: “The powers of hell will assail the dying Christian; but his angel guardian will come to console him. His patrons, and St. Michael, who has been appointed by God to defend his faithful servants in their last combat with the devils, will come to his aid.” Amen to that.
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