Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel & Raphael, Archangels

   The angels are both messengers of God and symbols of God’s ever-loving relationship with us.
Maybe you already knew this, but in reading about this feast I was surprised to learn that references to angels are more common in the New Testament than in the Hebrew Scriptures. 
The names of the angels all do come from Hebrew. Did you know the “el” at the end of all their names derives from an ancient term for God? Thus, Michael translates as, “Who is like God?” Gabriel means “Might of God,” and Raphael translates as “God’s healing.”
The start of our First Reading from Daniel – “God is my judge” – speaks of a vision that the prophet has of God enthroned and attended to thousands and myriads of angels. We then move on to the description of the one who, in the New Testament, we will identify as Christ, the Messiah, the Savior King of Israel who is said to be like “a son of man” coming on the clouds of heaven. Further, we’re told that his is “an everlasting dominion, that shall not be taken away, his kingship shall not be destroyed.” This, of course, is an image that the Gospels will use to describe the return of the Risen Jesus at end of time as he calls his people to himself.
Our Gospel reading from John is the scene where Jesus meets Nathaniel who is greeted as “a true child of Israel.” (Another “el” name and here it means “God has given.”) Puzzled, Nathaniel asks, “How do you know me?”  Rather enigmatically, Jesus tells him that before Philip called him, Jesus saw him under the fig tree. Nathaniel responds by confessing, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus tells Nathaniel that he will “see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” This is a clear allusion to the dream of Jacob who saw God’s angels going up and down on a ladder linking Heaven and Earth. In other words, linking God with his people. Jesus, as the Incarnate Son of God is our bridge linking us to God. Jesus is our ladder by which God comes to his People and by which we go to God.
If angels and archangels are messengers of God and symbols of God’s ever-loving relationship with us, then Jesus is the ultimate messenger and symbol of God’s Truth and Love. Through Jesus, God comes to us and through him we go to God.
         May God be praised now and forever more…