Seven angels, four kids, one family

We don’t really know what happened when the angels got divided into light and dark. It’s not something made completely clear in scripture, although of course everyone speculates. Revelation 12 states clearly that war broke out in Heaven and the dragon (ie, Satan) swept a third of the stars down from the sky. We assume God posed a test to the angels, and whatever it was, it was so tough that a third of them couldn’t do it. Or wouldn’t.

There’s a passage in Ezekiel about how Lucifer tried to raise his throne higher than God’s, but I can’t imagine it was a literal rebellion along the lines of “You’ve been king long enough; now it’s my turn.” They knew God was omnipotent. I think it was more along the lines of, “I don’t want to do what you want me to do. I want to stand alone.”

If you look at the context of Revelation 12, the rebellion of the angels is placed immediately beside the depiction of the woman clothed with the sun, the holy tabernacle. And she gives birth to a child that is clearly supposed to be Jesus. This led the church fathers to speculate that it was the incarnation of Jesus as a man which caused the angels to rebel: they didn’t want to worship God incarnate in a lower form, man being “a little less than the angels” according to the psalm.

But what it if wasn’t Jesus specifically? What if it was just the idea that God would breathe His life into matter, into an animal thing?

It doesn’t seem offensive to us because we are animal things. We’re used to us. But if you’re an angel and you’re used to thinking of matter as something you play with, something you see as a reflection of God’s glory but not really glorious in itself, that’s got to be a shock. It’s absurd. It would be the same thing as you coming home to find your mother kissing a pig, and then she sets a place for it at the table and says the two of you will be sharing a bedroom. Why are you doing that? What are you trying to prove? That’s just wrong!

What if they felt God’s holiness was so great, so pure, so tremendous, that cramming His life into a temporary biological construct (smelly, awkward, limited) was an affront to the order of things? What if they knew they’d have to love the Spirit of God in such a monstrous hybrid, unless they stopped loving God completely?

It’s the equivalent of “I can’t bear to see you this way, so I won’t see you at all.”

And a third of them couldn’t. 

We don’t know; we’ll never know in this lifetime, and it’s possible we’re better off not knowing.

September 29th used to be known as Michaelmas. Nowadays no one knows what that is. The Catholic Church celebrates today as the feast days of Saint Michael, Saint Gabriel and St. Raphael the Archangels.

I’ve always found it unfair that human saints get their own feast days, but the Catholic Church expects the archangels to shaaaaare. Your proper response to that is “Get over it, Jane,” and I understand. But still, allow me to gripe for a minute: St. Gabriel used to have March 24th for his feast day (the day before the Annunciation) and St. Raphael used to have October 24th, but they got moved over to St. Michael’s feast day. And then no one was put on those two feast days to replace them. It’s kind of like thelandlord breaking your lease so you have to move in with your brother, but then not moving anyone else into the apartment.

I’m done with my self-indulgent rant. You can tune back in now, guys. Sorry.

We’ve seen Michael in the Bible as the defender of the nation of Israel and later as the defender of the Christian faith. (He never identifies himself, by the way. He’s always identified by someone else.) Gabriel shows up as Daniel’s interpreter, and later as the annunciator to Zachariah and to the Virgin Mary. Raphael is one of the main characters of the Book of Tobit (sacred scripture in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles but not included in Protestant Bibles).

Why are these three special enough to be the only named angels in scripture? No clue. We know there are millions of millions of angels (according to Daniel) and we assume the rest of them have names too. (As Bucky says in Honest and For True, “Hey You just lacks that distinctive ring.”)  But we see them in the Bible, when asked, turn it back around at the asker and either refuse to give their name or else ask why the person wants to know. Clearly they don’t want to be worshipped as idols. But three of them in later books do get to tell us their names.

Being as we’re the Philangelus household, tonight we get to celebrate a little for them. Angels don’t eat, but as an Italian I cannot fathom a celebration without food, so I’ll be making a little Michaelmas cake for us tonight. And not angel food cake, either (bad me) but a lemon cake, like grandma used to make. 

October 2nd will be the feast day of the Guardian Angels (and so six billion angels get to share a feast day too) so I’ll try to have angel-themed posts between now and then. On the last day, I’ll make a lasagna for our seven household guardians, and if I get ambitious I might buy a cheesecake too.

Bon appetit, and happy Michaelmas!

(Oh, and for my Jewish readers, happy Rosh Hashanah!)

There are nights when my Patient Husband and I spend the time together, but parallel. He’s doing his thing and I’m doing mine. He may be reading while I crochet. He and I may be surfing the web on our separate computers. But we’re in the same room, comfortably together and yet not really talking. But there’s still communication. It’s a good thing.

Not all the time, of course. Over time, communication is the best weapon we have for protecting our marriage. At times, though, being together-yet-quiet is a good thing. It happens sometimes when we’re cooking together, sometimes when we’re at church and he just takes my hand and squeezes it, or sometimes when we’re doing our own thing and he catches my eye across the room.

What if we could do the same with God? It’s not an all-the-time thing, but it occurred to me that Jesus’ injunction to “pray always” might at times mean that you’re doing your thing while God is doing His, and yet you’re together. You’re aware.

I’ve tried this a few times, and I like the feeling. I’m loading the dish washer and I imagine Jesus sitting at the table reading the newspaper. Or I’m folding laundry and imagine Jesus on the couch with a book. (Jesus frequently reads in my imagination.)

For some reason, this feels to me like sanctifying the work I do. It’s not much, and it takes a little practice for me to get into the groove of it (or else I just forget and my mind wanders off into….Ooh! Shiny!)

It’s not difficult to do, is my first thought. And yet I enjoyed it. Clearly this kind of imagining doesn’t take the place of actual prayer, but it does seem to foster a deep silent intimacy with God. If you can imagine God watching you fold your socks, it’s a very different feeling from imagining God entering His password (86 million characters long, in hex) into His email to download your latest prayers. There’s more solidarity. It cuts through the pretense.

Back when I was in college, I used to take my guardian angel out for coffee. I’d go over to McDonald’s after going to the Saturday Mass down the hill, or else after we got back from visiting the nursing home on Sunday. And then I’d get a little table for two (you know, the half-booth. This is McDonald’s we’re talking about, not Chez Expensive) and I’d chatter in his general direction. I’d imagine him sitting in the seat across from me and just talk about this, that or the other thing. Nothing profound. Nothing awe-inspiring. And then when coffee was finished, I’d go home. 

It’s hardly Midnight Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, but it was good. And in its own way, it’s something we can all do. 

Give it a try. The next time you find yourself facing two baskets of unfolded socks, ask God to join you while you fold them.