St. Michael and All Angels September 29
This Friday September 29, the next to the last day of September is the Feast day of St. Michael and All Angels. I keep a carved stone with a painted picture of St. Michael with his sword hanging by my window above my desk at home in my office. St. Michael is almost the first thing I see when I life my eyes from my computer. You as well encounter St. Michael every time you come to this chapel. There is a powerful stained-glass depiction of St. Michael overpowering evil just as you leave this chapel on the left.
I give thanks for St. Michaels in my life who have been by my side in difficult times, lending me courage to go on.
I think of some of my favorite other angels of today. I have left you a picture of two of them. The first of course is Angel 2nd class Clarence Odbody played by Henry Travers who saves George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart, from bankruptcy and suicide in the timeless Frank Capra 1946 Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. Whenever I hear a bell ring, I do wonder if an angel has earned his wings!
The second is my all-time favorite movie angel, the suave angel named Dudley played to the essence by Cary Grant who comes to save the life and marriage of Bishop Henry Brougham, David Niven, whose wife Julia is played by Loretta Young in the 1947 Samuel Goldwyn Christmas classic, The Bishop’s Wife.
Whenever I visit our Bishop’s office, I always look around to see where Dudley is.
As I talk to people in spiritual direction I listen to hear if they mention angels in their lives, people whom they encounter for some time or briefly that stand by them or lead them through situations or obstacles which used to baffle them. All of us have encountered angels, sometimes unaware. They are the people whom we least expect who show up just at the right time, when someone you dearly love dies, when you learn you have cancer, when your children are in trouble, when you know the task before you is impossible, or just when you are having a bad day. Angels are life changing and life giving. They are messengers, truth tellers, who see God in us and, like the angel Gabriel to Mary proclaim that God is in us when we never have a clue.
Who were/ are the angels in your life? They may be sitting next to you.
Give thanks for them.
How do you repay them? You pay it forward by living the life God created you to be. You become Dudley or Clarence or St. Michael or all angels to those you meet one day at a time.
Joanna joannaseibert.com