World Invisible

Michaelmas Vespers, AD 2023 A

Halloween: A Romaunt
by Arthur Cleveland Cox

There is a world in which we dwell;
  And yet a world invisible!
And do not think that naught can be,
  Save only what with eyes ye see;
I tell ye, that, this very hour,
  Had but your sight a spirit’s power,
Ye would be looking, eye to eye,
  At a terrific company!

A Sonnet for the Archangel Michael
by Malcom Guite

Michaelmas gales assail the waning year,
  And Michael’s scale is true, his blade is bright.
He strips dead leaves; and leaves the living clear
  To flourish in the touch and reach of light.
Archangel bring your balance, help me turn
  Upon this turning world with you and dance
In the Great Dance. Draw near, help me discern,
  And trace the hidden grace in change and chance.
Angel of fire, Love’s fierce radiance,
  Drive through the deep until the steep waves part,
Undo the dragon’s sinuous influence
  And pierce the clotted darkness in my heart.
Unchain the child you find there, break the spell
  And overthrow the tyrannies of Hell.

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Tonight we celebrate two things, both of which have long fascinated me.

The first is our acknowledgement of the invisible world, a reality that every human culture of every time and place has unanimously affirmed. All of us have spiritual experiences. All of us have stories we simply can’t explain. Our age may be more reluctant to admit it, yet even our materialism attests that the realest things in life are those we cannot see.

There have always been ghosts and goblins, gods and monsters, forces beyond our ken who work for our preservation or our harm. The highest of these, the greatest of spirits, the pagans call their gods. Yet Jews, Christians, and Muslims likewise affirm the existence of such creatures, only we call them angels: immortal powers of capacious intelligence and unparalleled potency, not bound to space or time in those ways we find ourselves.

And so the ancient gods are real, if our understanding of them has fallen somewhat short. Within this vast cosmos swim giants, bodiless powers of pure intellect, pure mind, farther above us in the scale of being than we are above protozoa. And yet these too are creatures; these too are children of God. No matter how ancient or mighty or wise, they are no closer to infinity, and no farther away, than are we.

It is said that every angel is as distinct from every other as species are here below. We divide them into choirs, from the lower here on earth, through the middle maintaining reality, up to the seraphim who burn in the presence of God. But ultimately these are the efforts of children attempting to make sense of worlds beyond our understanding. One cannot truly grasp the complexities of the spiritual realms. We can only make vague gestures, and try not to go mad.

And so our metaphors, our stories of the celestials, bring us to the second reality we acknowledge here tonight, on this eve of St Michael and All Angels.

Sin infects even the godlike immortals, that primal transgression of pride. Tradition tells us that Satan, the Accuser, the Enemy of Man, was once a glorious angel, perhaps the greatest of them all. Lucifer, we call him: the Lightbringer, the Morning Star. He fell from grace, or so we’re told, over his refusal to accept the Incarnation, that the infinite, eternal Creator would take flesh and be born as a sack of skin. If anyone were chosen as the Mother of God, it ought to be an angel, the highest of them all.

Thus in his pride Satan fell, and a third of the heavenly host fell with him. So war broke out in heaven—something almost impossible to imagine, a war of immortals, a war of the spirits. And up from the lower choirs rose a faint yet firm little voice. “Who is like God?” the angel asked, in defiance of the devil. “Who can ever be like God?” And this faithful cry in the midst of rebellion rallied the armies of light—“Who is like God? Who is like God?”—and became the angel’s name.

Mikha’el, Michael, the spirit of faithful humility, who casts down the dragon of pride. He is the head of the heavenly host, the marcher lord of divisions divine; the archetypal dragonslayer, the hero who faces the giant defiant. Yet Michael, paradoxically, is no war-god, no storm-god. His limitless power, his inexhaustible strength, is such precisely because it is not his own. Michael doesn’t win because he’s bigger than his foe. He triumphs because he trusts in God.

Such is the mystery of humility: that in losing our life, we gain it; in denying our self, we find it; in surrendering to God, we open ourselves to the depthless ocean of infinite life. As long as Michael says, “Not me, but Him,” he cannot be defeated. He cannot be vanquished. For when God claims you, nothing and no-one else can.

How literally must we take this? To be a faithful Christian, a walker on Jesus’ Way, must we affirm both angels and devils, or is this but metaphor and myth? I’m honestly not sure that it makes all that much difference in the end. I have seen angels and demons. I have spoken to them in the night. Like the vast majority of humanity throughout the length and breadth of history, I believe in powers unseen. But I don’t expect you to take my word for it. I could be quite mad.

Rather, let us entertain the notion that when dealing with creatures of spirit, with realities higher than our own, the distinctions which we so readily draw between allegory and actuality both break down into truth. St Michael is a person and a symbol. The devil is a fiction and a fact. There are powers beyond us, above and below us, next to whom we are but minnows in the sea. Yet each and every one of us, regardless of our scale, is known and loved and gathered home within the grace of God.

I do believe in demons. And before the Christ they flee.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The St Michael Prayer:

O glorious Archangel St Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.

Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in Heaven. That cruel, ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan, who seduced the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.

Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.

These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.

Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.

Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and vanquishing the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.

Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered, ye hostile powers. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, the root of David. Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord, as we have hoped in Thee. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come upon Thee. Amen.

O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin Immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel St Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen.