Leo XIII, October 13th, and the Feast of St. Michael

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Today, September 29th, is the Feast of the Archangels, and in particular, the feast of St. Michael the Archangel.

The Roman Breviary describes him thus:

O Jesu!  Life-spring of the soul!
The Father’s power and glory bright!
Thee with the angels we extol;
From Thee they draw their life and light.
Thy thousand hosts are spread
Embattled over the azure sky;
But Michael bears Thy standard dread,
And lift the mighty cross on high!

Roman Breviary, Feast (Sep. 29), hymn Te splendor et virtus Patris at vespers.  (attr. to Bl. Rabanus Maurus 9th century)

St. Michael, you see, was charged with the task of leading the heavenly army of angels, and the first task was to evict Satan and the other evil angels to hell.  So much for Hell being empty.

It’s tragic today that many people have this soft, puny, chubby toddler image of angels.  pffft.  

When Our Lord was before Pilate, Jesus referred to the heavenly host as an army.  He told Pilate that had the Father not given Him up to Pilate, then His subjects would be there fighting to free Our Lord.

Recently, I made a comment on this in the “Lest the angels take stock.”  It seems times are changing, and we may be seeing more direct intervention of the Heavenly Army.

In the last episode, I mentioned that the wound on the right hand of Our Lady’s statue in Akita would stop bleeding on September 29th, 1973. 56 years years earlier, in 1917, the Children at Fatima would see that same right hand of Our Lady stop the fiery flames issuing forth from St. Michael’s sword. 

Just a year before the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, either in late September, or mid October — Lucia was never sure because she did not write the date down, St. Michael came to the children and taught them about the Blessed Sacrament.  1916.  

Lucia described it like this:

After we had repeated this prayer I don’t know how many time we saw the shining over us a strange light. We lifted our heads to see what was happening. the Angel was holding in his left hand a chalice and over it, in the air, was a host from which drops of blood fell into the chalice. The Angel leaves the chalice in the air, kneels near us and tells us to repeat three times:

Sr. Lucia describing the St. Michael’s third visit to them

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. And by the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversion of poor sinners.

St. Michael to the Children at Fatima, likely on September 29, 1916

After that he rose, took again in his hand the chalice and the host. The host he gave to me and the contents of the chalice he gave to Jacinta and Francisco, saying at the same time,

Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ terribly outraged by the ingratitude of men. Offer reparation for their sakes and console God.

Once more he bowed to the ground repeating with us the same prayer thrice:

Most Holy Trinity,…

and disappeared. Overwhelmed by the supernatural atmosphere that involved us, we imitated the Angel in everything, kneeling prostrate as he did and repeating the prayers he said.

Did you catch something?  Last episode, we discussed Our Lady’s hand bleeding …   The children saw the precious blood dripping from the Host in St. Michael’s hand.  All of it happening this time of year, around his feast.

More curious though, on October 13th.  There’s that data again, 33 years before the Miracle of the Son…  Pope Leo XIII was finishing Mass.  

Wait — do you remember last week’s episode when we discussed the events at Akita? During Mass.

The date was October 13th, 1884.  Witnesses described the Pope Leo stopped in front of the altar.  The described his face as showing horror and wonder at the same time.  They did not know what happened but the Pope immediately ran to his study and wrote something down.  After writing the St. Michael Prayer, he gave the prayer to his secretary and ordered him to have copies of it made and send it to all the bishops of the world ordering them to say the prayer after every Mass.

Pope Leo would describe the vision.  He said he had seen a chilling vision of “legions of demons” attacking the Church.  So fierce was the attack that they almost destroyed it. Then he saw St Michael intervening decisively to defend the Church – not immediately, but much later, and only after the faithful had multiplied their fervent prayers to the Archangel.

The children saw St. Michael, and they saw Our Lady halt the fire from Heaven so that we could pray and offer reparation.

St. Michael is not a chubby faced toddler.  He’s powerful!  Fr. Hardon would say that at a minimum we should invoke his protection twice daily, morning and night.  

Let’s pray Leo XIII’s prayer together:

Saint Michael the archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.  May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O prince of the Heavenly hosts!:  by the power of God cast into Hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.  Amen.

This article, Leo XIII, October 13th, and the Feast of St. Michael is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/leo-xiii-october-13th-and-the-feast-of-st-michael/
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