You will see heaven opened - Michael, Gabriel & Raphael

 Revelation 12:7-12a ‘Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.’

John 1:47-51 ‘You will see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’

‘You will see heaven opened’

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Walking along Church Street to the church last week I was beginning to muse on what I might say for this homily.

As I walked I realised that this year I hadn’t seen any Michaelmas daisies, a simple but pretty flower at this time of year.

As I thought that I looked to my right, in the field that is often flooded, and there lining the verge were, none other than, Michaelmas daises.

I must have walked past them a number of times in the preceding days but not noticed them.

Were they a message? An angelic message?

I had totally missed something that was hiding in plain sight.

There is something about the angels in that: always bringing the messages of the God of Heaven and earth who sends them, often ignored or unnoticed by we mortals, unless we tune in to them.

This time of year, late September and into October, is good for us because it reminds us to tune into things angelic.

At risk of sounding like the General Synod of the Church of England, this is the Season of Angels, Angeltide, with today’s feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and Friday’s feast of the Holy Guardian Angels.

That said, tuning into things angelic is not restricted to a time or season, rather, angelic activity pervades our worship, the scriptures, and the Christian Year.

In our worship we unite with the angels all that we offer in the Sacrifice of the Mass.

As the Book of Common Prayer 1662 magnificently retained (thank goodness):

Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord most High.

And of course, the Sanctus is an angelic hymn using texts from Isaiah and Revelation.

This is a theme much loved by the seventeenth century Anglican Divine, Jeremy Taylor.

He says that ‘the holy table’ on earth is a copy ‘of the celestial altar’.

His Eucharistic theology is well articulated by the Roman Canon which connects the earthly and heavenly sacrifice through angelic means:

In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God:

command that these gifts be borne

by the hands of your holy Angel

to your altar on high

in the sight of your divine majesty,

so that all of us, who through this participation at the altar

receive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son,

may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing.

And from the scriptures we could reference the cherubim, those angelic cousins, guarding Eden after the expulsion of our first parents; the angel who warns the disregarding Balaam, but is only seen by his donkey; the angelic visitors who receive hospitality from Abraham and Sarah - the list goes on.

Angels are there in the psalms: ‘In the presence of the angels I praise you, O Lord.’

An unnamed angel comes to Joseph, and surely the most joyous task of the angelic host is to proclaim the birth of the Messiah and singing, ‘Glory to God in the highest’.

But their activity doesn’t stop there: angels minister to Christ following his baptism; they are with him in Gethsemane; they attend the tomb at his Resurrection; they surround his Ascension into heaven; they lead apostles from prison; Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch and guide Cornelius to Peter.

Angelic activity rightly pervades our worship, our scripture and the every day because they are messengers of the Most High.

The angels still connect heaven and earth, as with the ladder stretching from Jacob’s pillow to heaven, an angelic sign pointing to Christ himself, which unfolds in the dialogue with Nathaniel in our gospel reading:

‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man’.

So at this time of year we glory in the angels in their ministry: you will see heaven opened.

Today we focus upon three of them: Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.

Those who have prayed the Office of Readings today will be familiar with Saint Gregory the Great’s homily that speaks of these three.

He reminds us that the word ‘angel’ is an office not a nature.

Although an angelos - the Greek word for ‘messenger’ - an angel is defined by the message they bear, not the messenger they are.

Yet the message can’t be unravelled from the messenger.

These three are messengers of salvation in its most powerful forms.

To the great Gabriel is given the highest task in preparation for the Saviour.

He goes first to Zechariah to announce the message of the conception of John and then to the Blessed Virgin to deliver what Saint Gregory calls, ‘the greatest message of all’, the Annunciation, so dear to us in Walsingham and at the heart of the charism of this holy place.

In that Holy House of Nazareth Mary joyfully responds to Gabriel, ‘Be it unto me according to thy word’.

Snubbed by Zechariah, heard by Mary, Gabriel takes back the ‘fiat’ of the Virgin to the Most High, the assent that the Word will be made flesh.

Gabriel’s message is salvation through the birth of the Saviour and the one who prepares His way.

Raphael brings salvation in the healing power of God that is manifest in Christ’s earthly ministry.

Raphael, St Gregory tells us, ‘wiped away the shadows of blindness from Tobit when he touched his eyes to cure him’.

Salve is healing; salvation is the healing remedy for the sickness of our mortal condition.

That healing, communicated by Raphael, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Gospels.

And when Christ heals today, through the intercession of Mary and the saints, Raphael delivers that healing, restoration and salvation to us.

Finally, Michael, of whom we heard in the first reading, is an angel of salvation because he is engaged in manifesting the triumph of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ over the powers evil and darkness.

Michael’s name means ‘Who is like God’ and Michael’s primary task is to tell the ancient enemy, that fallen angel, that it is not him.

Satan is the adversary of God and nothing like him, even if human heads are turned by his wiles.

So as we celebrate the archangels today, and all things angelic on Friday, we’re left with a question.

We’re in an era when more messages fly around the globe than ever before.

‘To message’ has become a verb when once it was a noun, but perhaps in the spirit of St Gregory it always was.

In a message-soaked age – 24 hour news, social media, WhatsApp and email pinging - when angelic messages sit in the spiritual inbox unopened, or don’t get through the firewall of our vanity and deafness, or bounce back as celestial spam: what are we missing?

The angels are indefatigable because they are messages and messengers of the Most High.

I missed the Michaelmas daisies for days before looking out for them and being open to the possibility of their presence.

Let’s be ever more alert to the holy messengers of God, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and all the heavenly host, to lift our hearts and minds to the One who sends them.

‘You will see heaven opened’