Quote of the Day

Here is the best quote I have ever found about hope, and it's from the Bible. (Romans 5:3,4)

Tribulation worketh patience; and patience trial; and trial hope.

Trials produce hope. Without trial there is no hope. Pretty simplistic, isn't it?

In Honour of the Archangels - from the archives

(Originally created and published in Sept 2008)

On September 29 the Catholic Church honours the Archangels Gabriel, Michael and Raphael in the new calendar, and the traditional calendar honours St Michael (Michaelmas Day). Saint Michael, being the patron of paramedics, holds a special place in my prayer intentions.

Click on any picture to enlarge it for more detail.


Saint Michael is given by the Church the highest place among the angels, for she refers to him as the "Prince of the heavenly hosts." Here Saint Michael leads the angels in their heavenly battle against Lucifer and his legions of disobedient angels when Lucifer's pride caused him to rebel against God and seek His throne.



St. Michael answered the call of the rebel angels with his warrior's cry of fidelity to God, "Who is like unto God? I believe and I adore." The devil shudders with terror every time we call upon the name of this triumphant heavenly marshal.



Saint Michael never ceases to wage war against the devil. He has been honoured since the earliest times, and the Church recognizes the exalted power and dignity that God has bestowed on this heavenly warrior, the dragon-slayer; the defender of Christians; the helper of the dying; the champion of the Church.

Almighty and Everlasting God, Who by a prodigy of goodness and a merciful desire for the salvation of all men, hast appointed the most glorious Archangel Saint Michael as Prince of Thy Church, make us worthy, we beseech Thee, to be delivered by his powerful protection from all our enemies, that none of them may harass us at the hour of our death, but that we may be conducted by him into the august presence of Thy Divine Majesty. This we beg through the merits of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.


Saint Raphael is the angel of peace, health and joy, and is best known for his role as the heavenly guide that God sent Tobias on his long and perilous journey to recover the money his father, now old and blind, had lent to a friend.


Here, Raphael appears to Tobias, with the salutation, "Joy be to thee always." The name Raphael signifies "Medicine of God," and indeed St. Raphael appears to be at the head of the angelic medical staff!



When Tobias was attacked by a great fish, Saint Raphael not only saved Tobias, but extracted the heart, gall and liver of the fish and later used it as a medicinal remedy.



Raphael secured a happy marriage for Tobias; a marriage that was truly made in heaven.



The Archangel Raphael, after the marriage of Tobias, left the young man with his new bride, and went himself to recover the money they had come to seek.



Upon returning from their journey, God's physician presents the gall from the fish that Tobias will use to anoint his father's eyes and cure his blindness. Saint Raphael is the angel sent in God's Providence to guide and guard, heal and save.



Tobias and his father offer half of their new-found wealth to Saint Raphael, as a thank you to him. Raphael refuses and reveals his angelic identity, telling them both to instead give thanks to God in heaven. Tobias 12:6-15"Bless ye the God of heaven, give glory to him in the sight of all that live, because he hath shewn his mercy to you...When thou didst pray with tears, and didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner, and hide the dead by day in thy house, and bury them by night, I offered thy prayer to the Lord. [13] And because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee. [14] And now the Lord hath sent me to heal thee, and to deliver Sara thy son's wife from the devil. [15] For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord.

O Saint Raphael, Medicine of God, Angel of happy meetings, of peace and of joy, we beseech thee, cure our infirmities of soul and body in virtue of the Divine Blood, source of all healing graces.



Gabriel, the "Strength of God," as his name means, is God's ambassador. His greatest mission was to announce the Incarnation and God's mighty work of the Redemption. Here, Saint Gabriel kneels and speaks those timeless words which will be echoed for all eternity, "Hail, full of grace."



Notice the humility that Mary displays at the presence of the Archangel Gabriel. Yet, notice too, how Gabriel is crouched before Mary in his own act of humility as he absorbs the sanctity and dignity of this most holy and humble Virgin whom God has chosen to be the Mother of Jesus.



Gabriel's announcement of the birth of Jesus echoes through the hills of Bethlehem as all of heaven resounds with the glorious hymn, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth among men of good will."



Gabriel, on another of his heavenly assignments, accompanies the Holy Family on their flight into Egypt.



Gabriel is the angel who comforted Our Lord in His agony in the garden. Jesus invited Peter, James and John into the garden to pray and watch with Him, but they slept, leaving Jesus to the comfort of an angel. Saint Gabriel strengthened Jesus, comforting Him with hope, peace, reverence and sympathy, giving him a heavenly chalice to drink from.

O Blessed Archangel Gabriel, we beseech thee, do thou intercede for us at the throne of divine Mercy in our present necessities, that as thou didst announce to Mary the mystery of the Incarnation, so through thy prayers and patronage in heaven we may obtain the benefits of the same, and sing the praise of God forever in the land of the living. Amen.

Duty calls

1 Corinthians 9:16 For if I preach the gospel, it is no glory to me, for a necessity lieth upon me: for woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.

As I mentioned in a previous post, for several years now I have been supporting the mission priests through the Society of the Propagation of the Faith by sending them stipends for Mass intentions on a regular basis. What attracted me to this was knowing that the mission priests need these stipends to purchase their bread and wine for saying Mass, and that I could have Masses said for people without going on a wait list. Even after paying the American exchange rate, I could have many more Masses said for souls (and sooner) than I could if I submitted them to my parish priests in Canada.

What I didn't realize though, was that through my contributions, I was also fulfilling my obligation to preach the gospel as quoted above in 1 Corinthians 9:16. In his papal message of May 2008, Pope Benedict XVI quoted this passage from Corinthians, noting that mission is a duty to which we must respond. Funny, but I didn't even realize that I was heeding the call.

Call no man Father

I work with several born-again Christians, but sadly, no Catholics. Not any who are practicing their faith, anyway. Born-agains are on fire for their faith, but they have so many misconceptions about the Catholic faith. It's like they've been poisoned against it. One fellow I worked with "found out" I was Catholic when my phone rang, and the person calling me asked about the practice of making sacrifices for Lent, and why some Catholics allow themselves, on Sundays of Lent, to have what they gave up. After the phone call, he said to me, "So you're Catholic, then?" (I knew all along he was a non-Catholic Christian by the plain cross on his lapel).

I told him I was a traditional Catholic, and later, during lunch, he pulled out a little King James bible from his jacket pocket, flipped to Matthew 23:9 "And call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven", and asked me what the meaning of that passage was, and why we call our priests Father. I noticed as he flipped through his Bible that he had many passages such as this one highlighted.

The next part of that passage is "Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, Christ". The meaning, as far as I understand it, is that our Father in heaven is to be regarded higher than any father upon earth, and we are not to follow any master who would lead us away from Christ. But this doesn't mean that we can't respect our parents, spiritual fathers and teachers, because the fourth commandment expressly commands that we should.

There are also many other places in Scripture that support the Catholic use of Father for our priests. Take a look at Acts 7:2 where St. Stephen calls Jewish leaders father: Who said: Ye men, brethren, and fathers, hear. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charan. And again in Acts 21:40 and 22:1, St Paul also refers to Jerusalem Jews as fathers: Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye the account which I now give unto you.

Abraham is called the father of us all in Romans 4:16-17: Therefore is it of faith, that according to grace the promise might be firm to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 (As it is written: I have made thee a father of many nations,)

And what about 1 Corinthians 4:14-15 where St Paul calls himself 'father': For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Surely this is strong evidence of why we call our priests Father. In the first epistle of St John, I John 2: 13, he says, I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him, who is from the beginning. Finally, and once again, in Philomen 1" 9-10, St Paul gives a perfect example of our tradition of calling priests father, where he says this: I, Paul, an ambassador and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus -- [10] I appeal to you for my child, Ones'imus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment.

I wish I had all of these references available to me that day when my co-worker was demanding to know how we dare to call our priests by the term father. At least now, I will be better armed if the subject comes up again.