The day that has just past was the festival of St. Michael and All Angels (aka Michaelmas). We celebrated the festival a day early at the closing Eucharist for the STS General Retreat, where Pr. Pari Bailey, STS, preached about the place angels in our culture and in the Christian Faith. I will soon post a copy of that sermon on the STS website, but until then I suggest that you check out The Confessing Reader where you will find -- as you will for nearly every Christian festival that included in the Calendar of the Book of Common Prayer -- a good and faithful description of angels in the Holy Scriptures and Christian tradition.
As the depiction here (taken shamelessly from The Confessing Reader's blog entry) of St. Michael suggests, the angels of God are not the harmless, cute beings in the "angels" section of gift shops, on greeting cards, or in popular American culture. I daresay that images of angels you might find in your local "Christian" bookstore or in a church's children's pageant won't be in line with this photo, either. But ponder upon the first words so often spoken by an angel in the Bible: "Do not be afraid."
2 comments:
Pastor Zip, thank you for the endorsement as "good and faithful". I appreciate that very, very much.
And I look forward to reading Pr Bailey's sermon!
For more on Pr. Bailey's sermon, see this blog entry.
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