There is nothing like a universe to spark one’s imagination. Two Christian feast days arrive at this time of year to boost our souls’ awareness of big things to come. The feasts append our scorecard of saints. And they can expand our dream to be part of the team.  

You might say some major-leaguers took the field on September 29. On the annual Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the Archangels, that trio reaffirms a context of remarkable history. They turned in great individual performances, but we need to remember everything they represent.

The Catholic liturgical calendar skimped a bit on publicizing them in 2024. Their feast fell on a Sunday. A US Conference of Catholic Bishops document that lists all the saintly anniversaries pointed out that this is the Lord’s Day, so keep it holy. That certainly suffices to immerse worshipers in wonder, but someone omitted from the official announcement an optional mention of those three heroes.

In an ideal universe, we’d all be on Cloud Nine marveling at Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. There’s no worry or blame; angels aren’t looking for stardom. This year, we can simply gear up for October 2, the Feast of the Guardian Angels. Also, focusing on the Lord helps remind us He’s actually got nine “choirs” of angels in the game.

The Wisdom of Clouds

We need to entertain the thought of angels these days because this is hardly an ideal universe. Our secular lives are chock-full of astronomical change, global generalizations, spaced-out experiences, and cosmic angst. Many folks have a love-hate relationship with anything “bigger than themselves,” and they weaponize every little thing.

Plenty of us are level-headed fans of big things—comets, eclipses, cutting-edge science, and superhuman technology, as well as the awesome beauty we see in the sky. Some “creatives” are working on their visions of virtual worlds and uplifting art, aspiring to enliven the humdrum in a positive way.

Sadly, others are building private bubbles of isolation, addiction, and utopian or dystopian distraction, providing small retreats from earthly reality.

Some elitists prefer to make thoughts their giant contribution, constituting what theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand called “cults of cognition.” Narcissistic, utopian “insights,” scientific or sociological, emerge from enclaves of confirmation bias. Their bubbles of bias veer around the supernatural. Advocating “progress,” they present themselves as masters of the universe.

The Church must evangelize our culture by offering alternatives to self-centeredness, instead pointing upward, saying, “The truth is out there.”

What we’ll find is stability and surprise, requiring both reason and faith. The Psalms make the connection: “The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament proclaims the work of his hands. Day unto day pours forth speech, night unto night whispers knowledge.”

To learn about God’s universe in an orderly way, we should talk more about angels. Few people study them, even though Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all affirm their existence in similar terms, as do the Old and New Testaments. Their story is intriguing and inspiring.

A 1995 introduction to angelology, Angels (and Demons): What Do We Really Know About Them? by noted Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft, acknowledges we can’t offer scientific proof that angels exist. But they fit well into enduring wisdom about God’s approach to creation.

From the Minors to the Majors

His ecology embraces hierarchy and fullness. He delegates roles in a structured, interactive way and ensures that all the bases are covered, so to speak.

From the human perspective, “we see that the universe is filled with all sorts of species. Every possible rung on the cosmic hierarchy is filled,” says Kreeft. Mankind is at the top rung of earthly species and is kindred to animals and all of earthly creation. Humans are meant to cooperate as caretakers, lovingly tending our planet and its life forms.

The Holy Spirit animates our souls to be immortal spirits, which are ultimately inseparable from our human bodies. There is a huge leap between God and the spirit of man, but angels are created to close that gap, reflecting the continuity and order inherent in God’s abundant birthing.

As French priest Teilhard de Chardin reportedly put it, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” In our earthly existence, we are linked (imperfectly) with higher realms of spirit.

God dwells with His people, and Jesus Christ was incarnated to walk with us intimately. But there’s also a support structure for us. Our delegator God created angels as communicators, or “messengers”—that’s what “angel” means, explains Kreeft, crediting St. Thomas Aquinas as the chief source of his angelology.

How to Be a Heavenly Host

Kreeft writes that angels are bodiless spirits with intelligence and will. They live eternally in God’s presence, obeying His will to communicate with us in two ways. As situations warrant, they can assume temporary bodies, or they can influence our imaginations to inform us, as through dreams (Saint Joseph, Jesus’ foster father, was a dreamer).

The nine choirs of angels, another hierarchy, are topped by the angels totally engaged in worshiping and contemplating God. The choir closest to God is the Seraphim. That’s why we imagine them on Cloud Nine. Their group of colleagues includes the choirs called Cherubim and Thrones.

The middle trio, which Kreeft casually compares to middle managers, are the Dominations (or Dominions), Virtues, and Powers.

The group on the lowest tier, specialized as warriors and guards, offers the closest companionship to humans. They are remarkable allies in a universe where spiritual warfare (between angels and their fallen counterparts, the demons) is a constant behind the scenes.

More and more people, secular and religious alike, admit they see this warfare in today’s headlines. Humanity is caught up in the “good vs. evil” battle.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described it this way: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart…. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”

Kreeft writes, “Our natural battles are surrounded by a supernatural battle.”

The army of the loyal angels is stronger than the rebel angels. The demons have lost the war, but deadly skirmishes, where souls face grave risk, persist in our time and place. Kreeft warns us: “We desperately need to recapture this vision today.”

Angels, as allies alongside us, come to our aid when we believe in them, invite them in, and respond to them with an action-ready “yes.” It’s actually a “yes” to God’s love and will.

At the top of the third tier of angels are the Principalities, guarding communities and nations. Archangels come next as the crucial message-runners in the fighting force, conveying important information/transformation from God to mankind.

Within the last-but-not-least choir, honored on October 2, all human beings have ever-present Guardian Angels. Because they can’t violate our free will, they literally wait upon us. Imagine them saying wistfully, “Give me something to do!”

The September 29 feast arises from the fact that Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael are the three archangels mentioned in Scripture.

Parts of the Bible refer to St. Michael as the “prince” of God’s warriors, wielding a sword in spiritual warfare against Satan and the other rebel angels. Some bishops around the country have reinstated the Prayer to St. Michael, traditionally said after Sunday Mass. It was written by Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903).

St. Gabriel is likewise mentioned in several Scriptural settings, largely playing the role of a great communicator of good news. He speaks in the Book of Daniel to prophesy the coming of the Messiah (Daniel 9:21-27), and he later informs Mary that she shall become the Mother of God (Luke 1:26). The Vatican has named him a patron saint of communication.

Islam also honors Gabriel for a very prominent role—as the angel who conveyed the Quran to the prophet Muhammad. The religion also recognizes Michael, as Kreeft points out.

St. Raphael is honored as a great healer in the Book of Tobit, an Old Testament book deemed inspired by Catholics but rejected by Protestants. This archangel accompanied Tobit and his son Tobias on a difficult journey and cured Tobit’s blindness (Tobit 12:5-17).

Don’t Just Wing It

These heroes singled-out for the Christian feast of archangels can help people of various faiths to picture a universe with greater spiritual “population”—and potential—than we have imagined.

That recalls a riddle: What is the difference between a paranoid and a mystic? The paranoid believes the universe is conspiring against him. The mystic believes it’s a conspiracy in his favor.

This mystic’s conspiracy theory is one in which we should want to participate. Even though the Church does not require us to believe in angels, anyone intrigued by the universe and suspecting that collusion therein must have a meaning will want to sign up with those forces who are working on our behalf.

This elevated, mitigated field of competition resonates with us whenever we call to God for help. It should also appeal to those who have started to think they must be God in their own little universe. Why undertake that effort? We need a universe that minimizes chaos, maximizes fulfillment, and has a reliable infrastructure.

Let’s summarize the sustainable ecology represented by Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, along with guardian angels and the other choirs loyal to God (and us). At this time of year, in these kinds of times, we’ll allow our imaginations to venture beyond Kreeft’s authoritative text.

We can reflect on a universe where a loving and creative God, who knows all, encourages contemplation and action, faith and reason, justice and mercy. He bestows great dignity on an immense diversity of creatures who can use all their faculties freely and fruitfully.

Of course, free will also implies that some creatures will carelessly go rogue against God’s inclusive, unifying plan for “no vacancies” among heaven’s many mansions. The rebel angels tried this, and there was hell to pay.

As we see on earth, the looming presence of rebellion and chaos within and among us requires a high level of orderliness, attentiveness, diligence, and accountability. We have role models for the rigors of preparedness we should undertake. Think of the warrior angels as Navy Seals—or the US Secret Service (at its best).

Consider this: Our guardian angels are accountable to God for responding to our properly registered requests! Remember George Bailey’s “angel second class” Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life. His duty involved a gigantic task serving a stubborn client, but together they made a wonderful movie.

A sense of hierarchy, which earth’s history and our natural selfishness have taught us to resist, is actually a great boon on the universal scale. Humans—and angels—are most liberated and joyful when we discern where we’ve been posted and what our delegated roles are, when we humbly follow the lanes on the highway to heaven.

Christian author G.K. Chesterton famously said, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

Angels? Guardians? Cardinals? Miracle Mets?

We recognize responsibilities toward—and receive beneficence from—many fellow creatures in our spiritual travels. They are the points of triangulation helping us to navigate our paths. If we’re busy moving people around like pawns through manipulation, we might think we’re on-course, but our internal gyros are fried. It’s like cyber-warfare against ourselves.

Everyone should receive what is due to them. Like the denizens of clouds seven, eight, and nine, humans owe praise and worship to our perfect, all-powerful, all-loving Creator. Moreover, we owe other creatures the same love which God bestows on them. We’ve been told, “Love one another as I have loved you,” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Lastly, the universe (scientific and spiritual) is an amazing example of connectivity. God wants angels, saints, and humans communicating all the time, praying for each other, celebrating creation, learning and teaching, keeping each other humble and whole. Pope Francis has reminded us, “Love always communicates.” Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed. (Luke: 8-17)

These are a few things we might learn from the Feast of the Archangels and the Feast of the Guardian Angels. The fact that these angels know what they are doing can encourage us to make at least a best guess about ourselves.

Whether or not we use a liturgical calendar, let the baseball playoffs remind us of this season of heightened awareness. It’s no fun if we don’t choose our loyalty to a team—in this case, a team that’s loyal to us.

These days, our polarized culture’s conflicts between good and evil can no longer be downplayed like a national pastime. This is serious business, universally. The eternal presence of the angels is a frame of mind worth constructing and maintaining. If we build it, they will come.

Image from AI designer function of Microsoft Bing