Archangel

“ In the vault of the sky Christ appears, enthroned upon a rainbow, his feet resting on a globe. He is encircled by clouds, below which a ring of angels supports a cross, while to the right and left are seraphs sounding their trumps, and all the distant air is aquiver with angelic forms. Hovering midway between earth and sky is St. Michael, the archangel. Down on the earth are the myriads of the risen: the good on one side, in orderly bands, lifting hands and heads toward heaven, and on the other the lost souls in a tumult of flames and smoke. ”

“ And, oh, when a being thus armed with the panoply of the archangel, sent forth with powers to unseal the book of knowledge to the starving spirits of the mind, that they, gazing upon its effulgent pages, may drink in the glory, light and love of Deity! ”

“ Together they met, those two children who had stood together in the earthly courts of the Most High, and whom the angel had simultaneously called from the earth, beneath the shining battlements of "the city of God." The white wings of the warden-angels, who stood on its watch-towers, were slowly folded together, and back rolled the massive gates from the walls of jasper; and with the great "Godlight" streaming outward, and amid the sound of archangel's harp and seraph's lyre, the ministering angels came forth. ”

“ The Archangel is biting his lower lip and with flashing eyes, frowning forehead, and rosy cheeks is grasping a Greek shield and brandishing in his right hand a Sulu kris, ready, as would appear from his attitude and expression, to smite a worshiper or any one else who might approach, rather than the horned and tailed devil that had his teeth set in his girlish leg. ”

“ His form had not yet lost All its original brightness, nor appeared Less than an Archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured: as when the sun new-risen Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or, from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone Above them all the Archangel. But his face Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride, Waiting revenge.... ”

“ Thirdly, around this infernal sea a vast spherical arch will hang, a thousand miles thick, a massive and unbroken shell, through which there are no spiracles, and whose external surface, beautiful beyond conception, becomes the heaven of the redeemed, where Christ himself, perfect man as well as perfect God, fixes his residence and establishes the local sovereignty of the Universal Archangel. ”

“ Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil. We humbly beseech God to command him: and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by thy divine power thrust into hell Satan and the other evil spirits who roam through the world seeking the ruin of souls. ”

“ Almighty and eternal God, who in thine own marvellous goodness and pity didst, for the common salvation of mar, choose the glorious, archangel Michael to be the Prince of thy Church; make us worthy, we pray thee, to be delivered by his beneficent protection from all our enemies, that at the hour of our death no one of them may approach to harm us, and that by the same archangel Michael we may be introduced into the presence of thy high and heavenly majesty; Through the merits of the same Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. ”

“ In a splendid psalter preserved in the British Museum there is a large picture (an engraving of which is given on the preceding page) of a soul climbing an extremely steep and high mountain, on the summit of which a winged archangel stands with outstretched arms to receive him. The soul has nearly reached the top; another step will bring him within the archangel's reach; but behind him is the devil with a long three-pronged clawing instrument, which he is about to thrust into the hair of the ascending saint; and no man can tell which is to finally have that soul, the angel or the devil. ”

“ But, [Pg 19] although the relation between the Deity and the angelic population was so close that we can only express it by having recourse to the conception of physical nearness, yet even to the Angels the Deity was so shrouded in clouds and mystery that the highest Archangel might proceed on a wrong notion of his character, and, just as human beings do, might believe the Divine omnipotence as a theological proposition, and yet, in going about his enterprises, might not carry a working consciousness of it along with him. ”

“ The angels are not all equal in dignity, but are divided into nine classes, or choirs, according to their rank or office, and, as theologians tell us, arranged from the lowest to the highest and named as follows; angels, archangels, virtues, powers, principalities, dominations, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim. Archangels are higher than angels and are so called because sent to do the most important works. It was the Archangel Michael who drove Lucifer from Heaven and the Archangel Gabriel who announced to the Blessed Virgin that she was to be the Mother of God. ”

“ A virtuous life led by degrees through the states of heroes, angels, and archangels; and an archangel, if he behaved himself, might hope to be absorbed, in the course of time, into the divine essence itself ”

“ To this errand the pope answered thus, "If it is allowed to men to hallow the church which the archangel himself constructed, then the hallowing ought to be on the day on which, through the grace of the Almighty, he gave you victory. ”

“ An Archangel is of course an Archangel to other inferior angels, and Powers, and Dominions have other spheres over which they exercise authority. This is what we find in heaven and in the administration of God. ”

“ Also in another manner, innumerable sick are there often and frequently healed, and many miracles, through the archangel's power, are there performed; but chiefly on this day, when the people from every nation visit the place, and the angel's presence is there in some measure most sensible, that the words of the apostle may be bodily fulfilled, that which he spake spiritually: he said, that "angels shall be sent as ministering spirits from God hither into the world, that they may be for a succour to his chosen, that they may receive the eternal country with him." ”

“ WHY IS THE SOLE OF MAN'S FOOT UNEVEN?
(from the servian.)
When the evil angels rebelled against heaven and escaped to the earth, they took the sun with them. Their prince, the archfiend, stuck it on a lance, and carried it on his shoulder.
When, however, the earth complained to heaven that it would be quite burnt up by the sun, an archangel was sent down to see how he could take the sun away from the archfiend. The archangel descended to the earth, and made friends with the prince of the rebels, who, however, at once divined the object of the visit, and stood, accordingly, on his guard. ”

“ On either side are ranged the Prophets of the Old Testament, the Apostles and other saints, severe, solemn, dignified figures. Angels, holding the instruments of the Passion, hover over Christ and the Virgin; under them is a group of archangels. The archangel Michael stands in the midst holding a scroll in each hand; immediately before him another archangel, supposed to represent Raphael, the guardian angel of humanity, cowers down, shuddering, while two others sound the awful trumpets of doom. Lower down is the earth where men are seen rising from their graves ”

“ You have often seen pictures of the holy angels. They are often represented as boys with wings and playing on harps; or again, the holy archangel Gabriel is represented as a youth with wings, holding a lily in his hand, and with a glory round his head. Why should they be drawn like that? They are represented as boys or youths, because they never grow old, but are everlastingly young, and are immortal. The wings signify that the angels are swift as thought, and fulfil God's commands quickly and willingly. The harps are to remind us that the angels ceaselessly sing God’s praises. ”

“ Michael the Archangel—a strange, riven height, venerated by the people before the coming of the "Black Hag of Geneva, who sends body and soul quick to hell." Here, they said, in the old days those who knew would sometimes go apart, climbing the red height till they came to the Chapel of the Archangel, a very small and ancient place, of which the foundations still remained, standing in a thick wood of ash-trees. ”

“ To say such things of Archangels and the Holy Angels is presumption, audacity, lying, as in the holy books we do not read that they did a like reverence, a like demonstration, to any saint—not even to the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God. ”

“ The feebleness of the body weakens the self-sufficient feeling, and disposes to piety. The young man, rejoicing in his strength, cannot believe that his breath is in his nostrils. In some such way the Archangel fell. Rejoicing in [Pg 20] his strength, walking colossal through Heaven, gigantic in his conceptions, incessant in his working, ever scheming, ever imagining new enterprises, Satan was in his very nature the most active of God’s Archangels. ”

“ So that it seems as if they considered Michael in some sort as we do the Messiah manifested in the flesh.
Let it be observed that the word archangel is never found in the plural number in the sacred writings. There can be properly only one archangel, one chief or head of all the angelic host. Nor is the word devil, as applied to the great enemy of mankind, ever found in the plural; there can be but one monarch of all fallen spirits. ”

“ If the archangel, in whom there is no sign of weakness, gives his answer with fear and trembling, when he is called upon to render account for his services to our Lord and King, one can imagine what fear and trembling will come upon a frail and sinful man, when he is asked to render account for his stewardship in the presence of God. But he who has had this hall in his keeping will first of all be asked how he has dealt out justice among men ”

“ Two senior archangels are always assigned as the personal aids of a Paradise Avonal on all planetary missions, whether involving judicial actions, magisterial missions, or bestowal incarnations. When this Paradise Son has finished the judgment of a realm and the dead are called to record (the so-called resurrection) , it is literally true that the seraphic guardians of the slumbering personalities respond to "the voice of the archangel." ”

“ Of this sentence the apostle Paul said, that "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead will first arise; afterwards, we who live, and shall be found in the body, will be caught forth with the others in clouds towards Christ, and so we shall ever after be with God. ”

“ It is now credible that the archangel Michael has care of christian men, who was prince of the Hebrew folk, while they believed in God; and that he manifested when he built himself a church among a faithful people on mount Garganus, as we have read a little before. It is done by God's dispensation, that the great heavenly angel is the constant supporter of christian men on earth, and their intercessor in heaven with Almighty God, who liveth and reigneth to all eternity. ”

“ The first church dedicated to the Archangel in Rome, or rather in its neighbourhood, seems to have enjoyed great veneration. The oldest Roman sacramentary, which goes by the name of Leo the Great, gives no less than five masses for the anniversary of its dedication; in three of them St Michael is mentioned by name in the prayers or prefaces. From the fact that in the other masses the angels in general are spoken of without special mention of St Michael, we must not conclude, as many liturgical writers have done, that they deal with the cultus of the angels in general. ”

“ As we raise our eyes to the “angel” bosses of the groining and to the springers of the eastern bay we can say, “Therefore with the angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name,” “To Thee all angels cry aloud,” for the Redeemer looks down upon us surrounded by the angels, and beneath the springer canopies there stand the figures of the archangels, “the seven spirits that are ever before the throne of God,” and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom was given by the Early Church the sweet title of the Queen of the Angels, “Regina Angelorum.” ”

“ he is very bad, but then he wonderfully picks up another day, and his face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Archangel a little damaged. ”

“ but away, there was always an aching for home, and the stern religion cast somewhat of a shadow over me, though, strangely enough, hell never came into my dreamings except in the interesting shape it took in "Paradise Lost." After reading that, the devil was to me no horned and hoofed horror, but the beautiful shadowed archangel, and I always hoped that Jesus, my ideal Prince, would save him in the end. ”

“ We adore thee, Saviour of the world, to whom all fidelity and glory is due! and to repair the sacrilegious communions and treacheries of so many false consciences, we offer up to thee the fervent and faithful zeal of the Archangels. ”

“ The glorified Christ assumed the lineaments of a [Pg 219] human being, from Deity became archangel, chief of all the celestial hierarchy; from archangel slipped down through the ranks of spirits, till he occupied the place of Son of God, preëxistent, and in attributes, super-human; thence he declined a step to the position of premiership over the human family, the inaugurator of a new type of man, virgin-born as indicating that he was not the natural product of the generations but was introduced into nature by an original law ”