September 29, 2013

The Epic Battle between St. Michael and Lucifer that took place in Heaven is still being waged on Earth!



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!
Fall of the rebel Angels by Frans Floris
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. 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



Woman of the Apocalypse Peter Paul Ruben

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.


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


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