Today is the memorial to our Guardian Angels. Did you thank your Holy Angel for never leaving you even when he witnessed your most grievous sins. Your Holy Angel stood by your side grieivng and yes maybe even wanting to avange the honor of God but he did not he stood by waiting and praying for grace that God will open your eyes and you will repent! If you had a conversion experience this was also due to your Holy Angel who guided you to the people that would help you. Just like St Augustine who through the prayers of his Mother St. Monica was led to St Ambrose whose homilies St. Ambrose helped awaken in St Augustine the light of faith!' Similarly, our guardian angels protect, defend and guides each of us through the warfare that is still taking place on Earth.
The same war that began in Heaven at the beginning of time in the book of between St Michael and the Good Angels who cast Lucifer and the bad angels out of Heaven. Rev. chapter 12. St. John writes of the great conflict at the end of time, which reflected the battle
in heaven at the beginning of time in the book of Genesis. I will put enmities between thee and the
woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie
in wait for her heel. Genesis 3:15
Did you thank your Guardian Angel today?
It is he who will lead you through this life and the epic battle still waging around us between the good and the bad angels. Man is also a participant in this epic battle still being fought in time on earth. Man has a choice in time for and against good and our holy guardian angel wants us to be with then beholding the face of the father in Heaven! to the Judgment seat of Christ.The
battle that took place in heaven at the beginning of
time will wage on earth until Christ
returns and makes his enemies his footstool. Each human person will also
have his choice in this same battle either for God and His will or for
mans will. "O Angel of Christ, my holy Guardian and Protector of my soul and
body, forgive me all my sins of today. Deliver me from all the wiles of
the enemy, that I may not anger my God by any sin. Pray for me, sinful
and unworthy servant, that thou mayest present me worthy of the kindness
and mercy of the All-holy Trinity and the Mother of my Lord Jesus
Christ, and of all the Saints. Amen". An Eastern Orthodox prayer to the Guardian Angel
The Epic Battle between St. Michael & Lucifer that took place in Heaven still waged on Earth!
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| Fall of the rebel Angels by Frans Floris |
7 And there was a great
battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon
fought and his angels: 8 And they prevailed not, neither was
their place found any more in heaven. 9 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.
10 And I heard a loud voice
in heaven, saying: Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our
God and the power of his Christ: because the accuser of our brethren is cast
forth, who accused them before our God day and night. 12 Therefore
rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth
and of the sea! for the devil is come
down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
time. Rev.12:7-12
The Woman of Genesis 3:15 and the Woman with the Dragon in
Rev.:12 can viewed as the Church founded by Christ and/or
the Virgin Mary who is the Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church.
Meditations on these verses should be made
with both interpretations present because both are interchangeable. For me I
can see more that Our Lord is referring to the Church of God that he left behind
on earth when he ascended to Heaven. Her offspring are those who are baptized that
the devil is seeking. The rivers of water the devil spews from his mouth are
the heresies, the lies that make good evil and evil good. The devil uses them
to try to destroy the church by these deceptions.
Pope Francis & Benedict XVI
Entrusted the Vatican
City State
to St. Michael the Archangel last July
This
was a significant action
taken by the Pope and may also signify that the pope is reinforcing the
words of Venerable Paul VI. The church is in the midst of the epic
Battle of Revelation Chapter 12 with the forces of evil in the world. Evil "whose smoke has entered into the very confines of the church. As Pope
Francis entrusted the Vatican City State to St Michael the Archangel he said
:"Though the devil always tries to disfigure the face of the Archangel and
that of humanity, God is stronger, it is His victory and His salvation that is
offered to all men. We are not alone on the journey or in the trials of life,
we are accompanied and supported by the Angels of God, who offer, so to speak,
their wings to help us overcome so many dangers, in order to fly high compared
to those realities that can weigh down our lives or drag us down. In
consecrating Vatican City State to St. Michael the Archangel, I ask him to
defend us from the evil one and banish him. " Read
more....
Venerable Pope Paul VI
and the MYSTERY OF EVIL
This
battle and deceptions were notably assessed and written about by the Venerable Paul VI as early as 1972 in a
General Audience given on November 15 of that year.
"What
are the Church's greatest needs at the present time? Don't be surprised at Our
answer and don't write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the
Church's greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we call the Devil.
Man's Fatal Tempter
There
are many things we do know, however, about this diabolical world, things that touch
on our lives and on the whole history of mankind. The Devil is at the origin of
mankind's first misfortune, he was the wily, fatal tempter involved in the first
sin, the original sin. That fall of Adam gave the Devil a certain dominion over
man, from which only Christ's Redemption can free us. It is a history that is
still going on: let us recall the exorcisms at Baptism, and the frequent
references in Sacred Scripture and in the liturgy to the aggressive and oppressive
"power of darkness." The Devil is the number one enemy, the
preeminent tempter.
So
we know that this dark disturbing being exists and that he is still at work
with his treacherous cunning; he is the hidden enemy who sows errors and
misfortunes in human history. It is worth recalling the revealing Gospel
parable of the good seed and the cockle, for it synthesizes and explains the
lack of logic that seems to preside over our contradictory experiences:
"An enemy has done this."He is "a murderer from the beginning, .
. . and the father of lies," as Christ defines him. He undermines man's
moral equilibrium with his sophistry. He is the malign, clever seducer who
knows how to make his way into us through the senses, the imagination and the
libido, through utopian logic, or through disordered social contacts in the
give and take of our activities, so that he can bring about in us deviations
that are all the more harmful because they seem to conform to our physical or
mental makeup, or to our profound, instinctive aspirations.
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| Venerable Paul VI with President John F. Kennedy |
This
matter of the Devil and of the influence he can exert on individuals as well as
on communities, entire societies or events, is a very important chapter of
Catholic doctrine which should be studied again, although it is given little
attention today. Some think a sufficient compensation can be found in
psychoanalytic and psychiatric studies or in spiritualistic experiences, which
are unfortunately so widespread in some countries today. We
can presume that his sinister action is at work where the denial of God becomes
radical, subtle and absurd; where lies become powerful and hypocritical in the
face of evident truth; where love is smothered by cold, cruel selfishness;
where Christ's name is attacked with conscious, rebellious hatred,where the
spirit of the Gospel is watered down and rejected where despair is affirmed as
the last word; and so forth.”
This was audience given by Venerable Paul VI in 1972. How much deeper men have fallen
and embraced the darkness of sin and error! What will it take to deliver us from it? The Divine intervention foretold at Fatima during the Miracle of the Sun? A purification by fire?
Sts. Michael, Garbriel and
Raphel
September 29th was
the Feast of Sts. Michael, Garbriel and
Raphel. This years feast fell on Sunday and the Sunday Mass
usually takes precedence. However, If you were fortunate enough to
participate in the Extraordinary or Tridentine form of the Mass you were
able
to celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of St Michael the Archangel. A double First Class Feast may take precedence over
the Sunday Mass. St Michael had his day in Divine providence this year in the Extraordinary form of the Liturgy!
Around 530 A.D., on September 29th , Pope Boniface II dedicated a church in the
great circus, at Rome, to St. Michael the Archangel. This particular Church was named after St.
Michael to show the power of martyrdom and how it converted pagan Rome to the Christian
faith. Previously in Italy, In
the year 492, St Michael had appeared in a cave on Mt. Gargano in the region
of Foggia in the Kingdom of Naples. St. Francis of Assisi knelt at the entrance to the cave and could not bring himself
to enter because of the holiness of the site. St Michael appeared at Mt Gargano as the head
of the heavenly army to remind us of that Great epic battle that took place in
heaven at the beginning of time is still being fought today on Earth!
The Hebrew meaning of Michael
is, Who is like God, denoted the combat which took place in Heaven between the
archangel and Lucifer. As we
have fallen through sin into the power of satan it is St Michael’s mission along with our holy guardian angels to
continue the fight for our deliverance. And
since Christ's coming the Church has ever venerated St. Michael as her special
patron and protector. She invokes him by name in her confession of sin, summons
him to the side of her children in the agony of death, and chooses him as their
escort from the chastening flames of purgatory to the realms of holy light.
When Antichrist shall have
set up his kingdom on earth, it is Michael who will unfurl once more the
standard of the Cross, sound the last trumpet, and binding together the false
prophet and the beast, hurl them for all eternity into the burning pool.
The battle that took place in heaven at the beginning of
time will wage on earth until Christ
returns and makes his enemies his footstool. Each human person will also have his choice in this same battle either for God and His will or for mans will.
Holy Michael the archangel defend us in battle that we perish not in the dreadful judgement!--Amen. Maranatha
-Come Lord Jesus
"In some countries the practice of receiving Communion in the hand has been introduced. This practice has been requested by individual episcopal conferences and has received approval from the Apostolic See. However, cases of a deplorable lack of respect towards the Eucharistic species have been reported, cases which are imputable not only to the individuals guilty of such behavior but also to the pastors of the church who have not been vigilant enough regarding the attitude of the faithful towards the Eucharist. It also happens, on occasion, that the free choice of those who prefer to continue the practice of receiving the Eucharist on the tongue is not taken into account in those places where the distribution of Communion in the hand has been authorized". . . Read more....
