Holy Communion Propers
Saint Michael and all Angels · September 29
The Collect
O Everlasting God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order; Mercifully grant that, as thy holy Angels always do thee service in heaven, so, by thy appointment, they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
For the Epistle · Revelation 12:7–12
There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. 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.
The Gospel · St. Matthew 18:1–10
At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Daily Office
The psalms and lessons appointed by the 1945 lectionary for this feast are distinct from the Communion readings above.
Meditation
TRINITY · 29 SEPTEMBER
The Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels
Michaelmas · The Warfare in Heaven · The Ministry of Angels
Michaelmas — MIK-el-mas · Archangel — ARK-ayn-jel
O everlasting God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order; Mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels always do thee service in heaven, so, by thy appointment, they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Scripture names Michael only a handful of times, and never once describes him. He has no face in the Bible, no recorded words beyond a single terse rebuke, no biography of the kind the Calendar gives its human saints. And yet no angel has gathered more devotion to himself across the history of the Church than this one, named exactly often enough to be unmistakably real and exactly rarely enough to resist every attempt to domesticate him. In the Book of Daniel he appears twice, once as "one of the chief princes" sent to reinforce an angel locked in a struggle against "the prince of the kingdom of Persia" — a glimpse of contest happening behind the visible events of history, out of sight of the kings and armies who imagine themselves to be the only actors on the stage — and once as the great prince "who standeth for the children of thy people," set to keep watch over Israel in a time of trouble still to come.
The Epistle appointed for this day carries the same picture further. War breaks out in heaven; Michael and his angels fight against the dragon, and the dragon is thrown down, defeated, his place in heaven found no more. It is the most overtly martial image the Prayer Book calendar offers all year, and it would be easy to let the feast stop there, at the drama of the battle. But the song that follows the victory in Revelation gives the credit for it not to Michael's strength but to "the blood of the Lamb" — Michael fights, and wins, as a minister of Christ's victory, not as its author. The archangel's whole significance is that he is not the point. He serves.
Which is why the Gospel set beside that Epistle is so exactly right, and so easy to miss the reason for. The disciples are arguing about which of them is greatest, and Christ's answer is not an angel in armor but a child set in the middle of them — except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven — with the promise, almost in passing, that the angels of such little ones "do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." The warrior and the child are given to the Church on the same day on purpose. Whatever unseen contest Michael wages, its fruit on earth looks like humility, not conquest; the feast that sounds the most triumphant in the whole Kalendar exists to correct any notion that triumph is what the Kingdom is chiefly about.
Michaelmas falls late in Trinitytide, when the light is failing and the harvest is coming in, and the old quarter-day associations — rent due, accounts settled, the year visibly turning toward its close — are not incidental to the feast but part of its sense. It is a reminder issued at exactly the point in the year when the ordinary work of living presses hardest: that the daily round, however unremarkable it looks from the inside, is held inside a much larger contest already decided, watched over by servants we do not see, on behalf of a Kingdom whose greatness looks, from where we stand, very much like a child.
Almighty God, who hast given thine Angels charge over those who fear thee, to keep them in all their ways; Grant that we, who cannot see the warfare waged on our behalf, may nonetheless walk humbly and trust watchfully, until we come at the last to join our voices with Michael and all the company of heaven, in the everlasting song of him that overcame; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.
Amen.