Feast Day of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael

Folks,

Today is the Feast Day of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. As most of us may already know, Michael is mentioned in the Books of Daniel, Jude and Revelation, Gabriel in the Book of Daniel and the Gospel of Luke, and Raphael in the Book of Tobit which Protestants reject. Michael means "Who resembles God?" Gabriel means "God's Able-Bodied One" or "Hero of God." And Raphael means "Healing God." Michael is the Archangel who wars against Satan. Gabriel is the archangel who announces to Mary that She would be Mother of the Messiah. And Raphael is the archangel who accompanies Tobias to his future bride Sarah in Ecbatana, Media where the demon afflicting her is finally routed. What is interesting is that both of today's choices for the Old Testament reading in the daily Scripture readings are normally associated with Christ's Second Coming, et we hardly ever talk about that any longer:

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14

Revelation 12:7-12ab

We run around daily in our lives with scarcely a thought that someday the words in Daniel chapter 7 will come to fulfillment:

The court was convened, and the books were opened.
As the visions during the night continued, I saw
One like a son of man coming,
on the clouds of heaven;
When he reached the Ancient One
and was presented before him,
He received dominion, glory, and kingship;
nations and peoples of every language serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not be taken away,
his kingship shall not be destroyed.

As Luke 17:26-27 states, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all."

Let us remember the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel that Pope Leo XIII wrote just before communism rose in Europe and Russia:

Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio;
contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperat illi Deus;
supplices deprecamur:
tuque, Princeps militiae coelestis,
Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute in infernum detrude.
Amen

While it took most the the Twentieth Century to defeat communism, I truly do not think the good Lord will tarry much longer given the present circumstances. But whatever the case may be, it is always wise to recite the pray to Saint Michael the Archangel. As Revelation 12:7-8 states, "Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven." Soon there will no longer be any place for them on Earth, but as Catawissa Gazetteer daily reminds us at his blogsite, we still have much purification to go through.