Saint John Henry Newman and the Archangel Michael

Our Lovers of Newman group met in September to read a Parochial and Plain Sermon delivered by John Henry Newman on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel (Michaelmas) in 1831, "The Powers of Nature" with the introductory verse of "Who maketh His Angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire." Psalm 104:4:

ON today's Festival it well becomes us to direct our minds to the thought of those Blessed Servants of God, who have never tasted of sin; who are among us, though unseen, ever serving God joyfully on earth as well as in heaven; who minister, through their Maker's condescending will, to the redeemed in Christ, the heirs of salvation.

There have been ages of the world, in which men have thought too much of Angels, and paid them excessive honour; honoured them so perversely as to forget the supreme worship due to Almighty God. This is the sin of a dark age. But the sin of what is called an educated age, such as our own, is just the reverse: to account slightly of them, or not at all; to ascribe all we see around us, not to their agency, but to certain assumed laws of nature. This, I say, is likely to be our {359} sin, in proportion as we are initiated into the learning of this world;—and this is the danger of many (so called) philosophical pursuits, now in fashion, and recommended zealously to the notice of large portions of the community, hitherto strangers to them,—chemistry, geology, and the like; the danger, that is, of resting in things seen, and forgetting unseen things, and our ignorance about them. . . .

Please read the rest there, if you like.

Reading this sermon led us to consider how much devotion Newman had to the Angels and Archangels throughout his life and this devotion is expressed in his works. 

The Dream of Gerontius is filled with Angels: the Soul's Guardian Angel, the five Angelical Choirs, Angels of the Sacred Stair, the Angel of the Agony, even the Fallen Angels (Demons).

Newman wrote poetry about the Angels, including "Angelic Guidance". 

"The Pillar of the Cloud" ("Lead, Kindly Light") ends with the poignant lines:

And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

And this 1853 verse addressed to his Guardian Angel.

But, most appropriate for today, he wrote this poem about St. Michael the Archangel as a hymn at the Oratory in 1862:

THOU champion high  

Of Heaven's imperial Bride, 

For ever waiting on her eye, 

Before her onward path, and at her side,

In war her guard secure, by night her ready guide!

To thee was given,  

When those false angels rose 

Against the Majesty of Heaven, 

To hurl them down the steep, and on them close

The prison where they roam in hopeless unrepose.

Thee, Michael, thee, 

When sight and breathing fail, 

The disembodied soul shall see; 

The pardon'd soul with solemn joy shall hail,

When holiest rites are spent, and tears no more avail.{322}

And thou, at last, 

When Time itself must die, 

Shalt sound that dread and piercing blast, 

To wake the dead, and rend the vaulted sky,

And summon all to meet the Omniscient Judge on high.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Le Grand Saint Michel, 1518, by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), Archangel Michael defeating evil.

Saint Michael the Archangel: An Antiphon and A Hymn

According to the Ordo of the Roman Missal of 1962, today we celebrate The Dedication of the Archangel Michael, referring to a basilica in Rome dedicated by Pope Saint Boniface IV in 610. In the current calendar for the Roman Rite we celebrate the three Archangels, Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, named in scripture as God's special messengers. 

Michaelmas, September 29, is one of the quarter days, an important date for paying debts, hiring servants, etc. More about the feast here.

The Antiphon for the Lauds (Morning Prayer) of Michaelmas describes the "war in heaven" recounted in the Book of Revelation ("Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it." Revelation 12:7–9):

Factum est silentium in caelo,
Dum committeret bellum draco cum Michaele Archangelo.

Audita est vox millia millium dicentium:
Salus, honor et virtus omnipotenti Deo.
Millia millium minestrabant ei et decies centena millia assistebant ei.
[Alleluia.]

There was silence in heaven
When the dragon fought with the Archangel Michael.

The voice of a thousand thousand was heard saying:
Salvation, honour and power be to almighty God.
A thousand thousand ministered to him and ten hundreds of thousands stood before him.
[Alleluia.]

Richard Dering, a Catholic convert and exile from England, offers this setting of the antiphon, sung by the Choir of Clare College. As another record label, Hyperion, describes Dering and this work, which is the Antiphon for the Benedictus canticle during the Lauds of Michaelmas:

Dering was, like Philips, an English Catholic musician who went into exile in the Spanish Netherlands (or, according to another account, converted to Catholicism while visiting Rome in 1612). By 1617 he was organist to the convent of English nuns in Brussels, and in the same year published his first collection of Cantiones Sacrae; the publisher was the noted Phalèse of Antwerp who also published music by Philips. Factum est silentium comes from a second collection which appeared in 1618; its declamatory, dramatic style shows clearly the influence of the new Italian Baroque style which Dering’s compatriots in England were perhaps slower to embrace.

More about the Benedictine convent in Brussels Dering served here. He returned to England in 1625 to serve Queen Henrietta Maria as organist in her private Catholic chapel and also served at Court as a musician among the king's Lutes and Voices. He was buried in the Savoy Chapel, a Royal Chapel, on March 22, 1630.

Father Edward Caswall translated the hymn, Te splendor et virtus patris for use at the Birmingham Oratory during Matins and Vespers for this feast:

O Jesu! Life-spring of the soul!
The Father's power and glory bright!
Thee with the Angels we extol;
From Thee they draw their life and light.

Thy thousand thousand hosts are spread
Embattled o'er the azure sky;
But Michael bears Thy standard dread,
And lifts the mighty Cross on high.

He in that Sign the rebel powers
Did with their Dragon Prince expel;
And hurled them from the heavens’ high towers,
Down like a thunderbolt to hell.

Grant us, with Michael, still, O Lord,
Against the prince of pride to fight;
So may a crown be our reward,
Before the Lamb's pure throne of light.

To God the Father, with the Son
And Holy Paraclete, with Thee,
As evermore hath been before,
Be glory through eternity.

The Latin text is attributed to Rabanus Maurus, the ninth century Frankish Benedictine monk and theologian.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us!

Saint Gabriel, the Archangel, pray for us!

Saint Raphael, the Archangel, pray for us!

Michealmas and St. Michael the Archangel

Image Credit: Saint Michael defeats the Dragon, from a 12th-century manuscript, published under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

According to the Ordo of the Roman Missal of 1962, today we celebrate The Dedication of the Archangel Michael, with the commemoration of the 16th Sunday after Pentecost. According to Volume IX (September) of Father Alban Butler's The Lives of the Saints:

THIS festival has been kept with great solemnity on the 29th of September ever since the fifth age, and was certainly celebrated in Apulia in 493. The dedication of the famous church of St. Michael on Mount Gargano, in Italy, 1 gave occasion to the institution of this feast in the West, which is hence called in the Martyrologies of St. Jerome, Bede, and others, The dedication of St. Michael. The dedication of St. Michael’s church in Rome, upon Adrian’s Mole, which was performed by Pope Boniface IV. in 610, and that of several other churches in the West, in honour of this arch-angel, were performed on this same day. 2 Churches were likewise erected in the East, in honour of St. Michael and other holy angels, from the time when the Christian worship was publicly established by the conversion of Constantine, doubtless upon the model of little oratories and churches, which had been formerly raised in the intervals of the general persecutions, in which storms they were again thrown down. Sozomen informs us, that Constantine the Great built a famous church in honour of this glorious archangel, called Michaelion, and that in it the sick were often cured, and other wonders wrought through the intercession of St. Michael. This historian assures us, that he had often experienced such relief here himself; and he mentions the miraculous cures of Aquilin, an eminent lawyer, and of Probian, a celebrated physician, wrought in the same place. This church stood about four miles from Constantinople; a monastery was afterwards built contiguous to it. Four churches in honour of St. Michael stood in the city of Constantinople itself; their number was afterwards increased to fifteen, which were built by several emperors. 3 

Though only St. Michael be mentioned in the title of this festival, it appears from the prayers of the church that all the good angels are its object, together with this glorious prince and tutelar angel of the church. On it we are called upon, in a particular manner, to give thanks to God for the glory which the angels enjoy, and to rejoice in their happiness. Secondly, to thank him for his mercy to us in constituting such glorious beings to minister to our salvation, by aiding and assisting us. Thirdly, to join them in adoring and praising God with all possible ardour, desiring and praying that we may do his will on earth with the utmost fidelity, fervour, and purity of affection, as it is done by these blessed spirits in heaven; and that we may study to sanctify our souls in imitation of the spotless angels to whom we are associated. Lastly, we are invited to honour, and implore the intercession and succour of the holy angels.

The shrine church of St. Michael the Archangel on Mount Gargano still draws pilgrims, according to this website (which is certainly tinged with post-Vatican II obsession!):

San Michele developed into a fairly important medieval shrine, visited by kings and saints and commoners. But the cult of San Michele hardly seems like one that a person might expect to thrive 50 years after Vatican II. With its medieval buildings, including the shrine, one might expect that Monte Sant’Angelo, the town that grew up there, would be a good tourist attraction whose religious appeal had faded. Yet this hardly seems to be the case. Carloads and busloads of tourists continue to come to town. But interestingly, they all bypass the castle museum at the top of the hill and a number of other high quality (mostly free) medieval sites, heading past religious souvenir shops and restaurants, straight down the stairs to the cave, like good pilgrims. Many are on pilgrimages that have taken them to the nearby shrine of Padre Pio. The shrine in itself could be a great teaching site for an art history class, but seems instead to be very much a devotional site. Pilgrims typically spent considerable time praying in pews, at various statues and altars in the grotto, and at Mass there. Interestingly, a statue of the Immaculate Conception is placed at the front of the Archangel Michael in the sanctuary. It is an unusual image for Italy, since she is not a Madonna with child. Despite her presence, pilgrims said they come to honor the Archangel. Interestingly, Immaculate Conception statues are not in evidence in the souvenir stores in town, where the Archangel Michael is ubiquitous, followed by Padre Pio. A small museum of ex votos on site gives witness to a long history of favors received through the intercession of St. Michael.

In England, Michaelmas was an important date as it was used as one of the quarters of the year, a date for reckoning debts, holding elections, etc:

As it falls near the equinox, the day is associated with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days; in England, it is one of the “quarter days”.

There are traditionally four “quarter days” in a year (Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September) and Christmas (25th December)). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes. They were the four dates on which servants were hired, rents due or leases begun. It used to be said that harvest had to be completed by Michaelmas, almost like the marking of the end of the productive season and the beginning of the new cycle of farming. It was the time at which new servants were hired or land was exchanged and debts were paid. This is how it came to be for Michaelmas to be the time for electing magistrates and also the beginning of legal and university terms.

Newman and the Angels

For the Feast of the Archangels Saints Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, an excerpt from Blessed John Henry Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermon, "The Invisible World":

Angels also are inhabitants of the world invisible, and concerning them much more is told us than concerning the souls of the faithful departed, because the latter "rest from their labours;" but the Angels are actively employed among us in the Church. They are said to be "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." [Heb. i. 14.] No Christian is so humble but he has Angels to attend on him, if he lives by faith and love. Though they are so great, so glorious, so pure, so wonderful, that the very sight of them (if we were allowed to see them) would strike us to the earth, as it did the prophet Daniel, holy and righteous as he was; yet they are our "fellow-servants" and our fellow-workers, and they carefully watch over and defend even the humblest of us, if we be Christ's. That they form a part of our unseen world, appears from the vision seen by the patriarch Jacob. We are told that when he fled from his brother Esau, "he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun had set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep." [Gen. xxviii. 11.] How little did he think that there was any thing very wonderful in this spot! It looked like any other spot. It was a lone, uncomfortable place: there was no house there: night was coming on; and he had to sleep upon the bare rock. Yet how different was the truth! He saw but the world that is seen; he saw not the world that is not seen; yet the world that is not seen was there. It was there, though it did not at once make known its presence, but needed to be supernaturally displayed to him. He saw it in his sleep. "He dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached up to heaven; and behold, the Angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it." This was the other world. Now, let this be observed. Persons commonly speak as if the other world did not exist now, but would after death. No: it exists now, though we see it not. It is among us and around us. Jacob was shown this in his dream. Angels were all about him, though he knew it not. And what Jacob saw in his sleep, that Elisha's servant saw as if with his eyes; and the shepherds, at the time of the Nativity, not only saw, but heard. They heard the voices of those blessed spirits who praise God day and night, and whom we, in our lower state of being, are allowed to copy and assist.

We are then in a world of spirits, as well as in a world of sense, and we hold communion with it, and take part in it, though we are not conscious of doing so. If this seems strange to any one, let him reflect that we are undeniably taking part in a third world, which we do indeed see, but about which we do not know more than about the Angelic hosts,—the world of brute animals. Can any thing be more marvellous or startling, unless we were used to it, than that we should have a race of beings about us whom we do but see, and as little know their state, or can describe their interests, or their destiny, as we can tell of the inhabitants of the sun and moon? It is indeed a very overpowering thought, when we get to fix our minds on it, that we familiarly use, I may say hold intercourse with creatures who are as much strangers to us, as mysterious, as if they were the fabulous, unearthly beings, more powerful than man, yet his slaves, which Eastern superstitions have invented. We have more real knowledge about the Angels than about the brutes. They have apparently passions, habits, and a certain accountableness, but all is mystery about them. We do not know whether they can sin or not, whether they are under punishment, whether they are to live after this life. We inflict very great sufferings on a portion of them, and they in turn, every now and then, seem to retaliate upon us, as if by a wonderful law. We depend on them in various important ways; we use their labour, we eat their flesh. This however relates to such of them as come near us: cast your thoughts abroad on the whole number of them, large and small, in vast forests, or in the water, or in the air; and then say whether the presence of some countless multitudes, so various in their natures, so strange and wild in their shapes, living on the earth without ascertainable object, is not as mysterious as any thing which Scripture says about the Angels? Is it not plain to our senses that there is a world inferior to us in the scale of beings, with which we are connected without understanding what it is? and is it difficult to faith to admit the word of Scripture concerning our connexion with a world superior to us?

Newman writes often about angels in his sermons, his meditations, and his poetry. The choirs of angels sing "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" in his The Dream of Gerontius--here as set by Edward Elgar.

Happy Michaelmas Day!

Michaelmas and St. Michael

From the first chapter of Henry Adams' Mont Saint Michel and Chartres:

The Archangel loved heights. Standing on the summit of the tower that crowned his church, wings upspread, sword uplifted, the devil crawling beneath, and the cock, symbol of eternal vigilance, perched on his mailed foot, Saint Michael held a place of his own in heaven and on earth which seems, in the eleventh century, to leave hardly room for the Virgin of the Crypt at Chartres, still less for the Beau Christ of the thirteenth century at Amiens. The Archangel stands for Church and State, and both militant. He is the conqueror of Satan, the mightiest of all created spirits, the nearest to God. His place was where the danger was greatest; therefore you find him here. For the same reason he was, while the pagan danger lasted, the patron saint of France. So the Normans, when they were converted to Christianity, put themselves under his powerful protection. So he stood for centuries on his Mount in Peril of the Sea, watching across the tremor of the immense ocean,--"immensi tremor oceani"--as Louis XI, inspired for once to poetry, inscribed on the collar of the Order of Saint Michael which he created. So soldiers, nobles, and monarchs went on pilgrimage to his shrine; so the common people followed, and still follow, like ourselves.

Today's feast of the Archangels was one of the important days of the sanctoral and secular year in England before the English Reformation, according to this site:

Michaelmas, or the Feast of Michael and All Angels, is celebrated on the 29th of September every year. As it falls near the equinox, the day is associated with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days; in England, it is one of the “quarter days”.

There are traditionally four “quarter days” in a year (Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September) and Christmas (25th December)). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes. They were the four dates on which servants were hired, rents due or leases begun. It used to be said that harvest had to be completed by Michaelmas, almost like the marking of the end of the productive season and the beginning of the new cycle of farming. It was the time at which new servants were hired or land was exchanged and debts were paid. This is how it came to be for Michaelmas to be the time for electing magistrates and also the beginning of legal and university terms. . . .

Traditionally, in the British Isles, a well fattened goose, fed on the stubble from the fields after the harvest, is eaten to protect against financial need in the family for the next year; and as the saying goes:

“Eat a goose on Michaelmas Day,
Want not for money all the year”.

Sometimes the day was also known as “Goose Day” and goose fairs were held. Even now, the famous Nottingham Goose Fair is still held on or around the 3rd of October. Part of the reason goose is eaten is that it was said that when Queen Elizabeth I heard of the defeat of the Armada, she was dining on goose and resolved to eat it on Michaelmas Day. Others followed suit. It could also have developed through the role of Michaelmas Day as the debts were due; tenants requiring a delay in payment may have tried to persuade their landlords with gifts of geese!

As you might expect, things changed:

Through the celebration of the day in this way, the prosperity and wealth of the family is supported for the coming year. The custom of celebrating Michaelmas Day as the last day of harvest was broken when Henry VIII split from the Catholic Church; instead, it is Harvest Festival that is celebrated now.

The Fisheaters website has more details about other customs on Michaelmas.

Saint Michael the Archangel,

defend us in battle;

be our safeguard 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 with him all evil spirits

who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen