Feast of the Archangels – September 29

The Feast of the Archangels — Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael — reminds us of God’s love and care. Each is named in Sacred Scripture and entrusted with a unique mission in God’s plan of salvation:

• St. Michael: Defender against evil and protector of God’s people
• St. Gabriel: Divine messenger who announced the Incarnation to Mary
• St. Raphael: Healer and faithful guide in the Book of Tobit

This celebration invites us to reflect on the angels’ role in our lives: guiding, protecting, and leading us closer to God. It also recalls the Guardian Angel prayer, a source of comfort throughout life:

“Angel of God, my guardian dear,
To whom God’s love commits me here,
Ever this day (or night) be at my side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.”

The Archangels – Reflection by Pope Benedict XVI

“The angel is a creature who stands before God, oriented to God with his whole being. All three names of the archangels end with the word El, which means ‘God’. God is inscribed in their names, in their nature. Their true nature is existing in his sight and for him. [Secondly,] they are God’s messengers. They bring God to men, they open heaven and thus open earth…. The angels speak to man of what constitutes his true being, of what in his life is so often concealed and buried. They bring him back to himself, touching him on God’s behalf….

All this becomes even clearer if we now look at the figures of the three archangels whose feast the Church is celebrating today. First of all there is Michael…. He defends the cause of God’s oneness against the presumption of the dragon, the ancient serpent, as John calls it. The serpent’s continuous effort is to make men believe that God must disappear so that they themselves may become important; that God impedes our freedom and, therefore, that we must rid ourselves of him….

Gabriel is the messenger of God’s Incarnation. He knocks at Mary’s door and, through him, God himself asks Mary for her ‘yes’ to the proposal to become the Mother of the Redeemer: of giving her human flesh to the eternal Word of God…. The Lord knocks again and again at the door of the human heart. In the Book of Revelation he says to the ‘angel’ of the Church of Laodicea and, through him, to the people of all times: Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The Lord is at the door—at the door of the world and at the door of every individual heart. He knocks to be let in: the Incarnation of God, his taking flesh, must continue until the end of time…. Today too he needs people who, so to speak, make their own flesh available to him….

Saint Raphael is presented to us, above all in the Book of Tobit, as the angel to whom is entrusted the task of healing. When Jesus sends his disciples out on a mission, the task of proclaiming the Gospel is always linked with that of healing. The Good Samaritan, in accepting and healing the injured person lying by the wayside, becomes without words a witness of God’s love. We are all this injured man, in need of being healed. Proclaiming the Gospel already means healing in itself, because man is in need of truth and love above all things…. Thus, we are prompted spontaneously also to think of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Sacrament of Penance which in the deepest sense of the word is a sacrament of healing. The real wound in the soul, in fact, the reason for all our other injuries, is sin. And only if forgiveness exists, by virtue of God’s power, by virtue of Christ’s love, can we be healed.”

— Pope Benedict XVI