Homily on the Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Michael and the Other Heavenly Bodiless Powers
By St. John of Kronstadt
(Delivered on November 8, 1907)
By St. John of Kronstadt
(Delivered on November 8, 1907)
"We unceasingly glorify You, Christ, who wisely united heaven with earth and formed one Church from angels and men" (Stichera at Small Vespers).
We celebrate, beloved brethren, the radiant feast of the lightning-like Archangel Michael and other heavenly Bodiless Powers.
The history of the establishment of this feast by the Church is long and we will not tell it; those who wish to know it, let them read about it in the ecclesiastical book "Cheti-Minei", but now let us talk about the spiritual world of innumerable angels, about their properties, about their rank and about the immeasurable goodness of God, which included us, Orthodox Christians, in this Angelic Council and formed one Church from angels and men; and then about our duty to honor them according to their dignity and imitate them according to their strength, as our future fellow citizens in the heavenly fatherland, about which we earnestly pray to the Lord God, our common Creator.
Saint Cyril of Alexandria says: "If our earth, this one point between worlds, bears such a countless multitude of people and all kinds of creatures, then how many times more inhabitants does the immaterial heaven, great and boundless by any mind, have in itself?"
Angels have a spiritual, immaterial, subtle, immortal nature, free from all corruption, but limited, not like the Lord Himself, the Spirit who is omnipresent and one, beginningless and filling all things. He brought angels from non-existence into existence, sanctified them with His word, and for their steadfastness against evil confirmed them unfallingly by the Holy Spirit (i.e. they can no longer fall into sin); their nature is full of wondrous, unfading light, holiness, goodness, beauty, wisdom, strength, immortality, ardent love for the Creator, and for each other, and for people, whose salvation they rejoice in and wish to have as their eternal citizens in the land of eternal light and incorruptibility, peace and joy. Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of the Apostle Paul, who was carried by the Holy Spirit to the third heaven, heard from him the mysterious teaching about the angelic world, wrote it down and passed it on to the Church (see his "Ecclesiastical Hierarchy").
The angelic world is divided into nine orders, and each of these into three ranks. The first and most luminous angels (Michael and Gabriel), as the bright dawn of the Beginningless Trinity, stand directly before the flaming throne of God, are illuminated by His unapproachable light and give enlightenment and knowledge of the mysteries of God to the ranks that follow them, and the lower ranks are governed by the supremely higher ones. Such heavenly citizenship, such a supremely luminous, holy, most radiant, blessed Council of the inhabitants of heaven is called the Heavenly Hierarchy, in accordance with the earthly hierarchy or the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church.
Let us marvel at God's all-good and most wise Providence, His immeasurable goodness, which has destined us for endless companionship and blessedness together with the angels in our future fatherland and has formed one Church of the bright and incorruptible angels and chosen and worthy men. What blessedness, indescribable by any language, awaits Christians faithful to God, if they remain faithful to their Christian calling to the end. In order to be worthy of eternal cohabitation and blessed life together with the angels in heaven, we must strive to honor them, imitate their holiness, humility, love and complete devotion to God, loftiness of thoughts, abstinence, prayer and fasting, mercy and sympathy for one another, ardent mutual love.
The holy divinely inspired seers of the mysteries of God and angelic visions, the Prophets and Evangelists, saw angels in a mysterious vision turning their faces towards each other in a friendly manner and singing to the Holy Trinity in unison. This teaches us to treat each other with ardent love and to live in unanimity, diligently serving the common Creator of all.
Glory to the immeasurable goodness of God, who has prepared for us an eternal kingdom, a kingdom of unfading light, peace and unshakable blessedness, together with countless hosts of angels.
Let us use the little time here to succeed in Christian virtue, in order to inherit this endless blessedness, which may the Lord grant us all through His grace, generosity and love for mankind, through the intercession of the most pure Mother of God and the intercession of the honorable heavenly Bodiless Powers, especially the radiant, lightning-like Michael and Gabriel and the Holy Angels, our guardians. Amen.
Source: From On the Terrible Judgment of God, Truly Coming and Approaching: New Terrible Words Spoken in 1906-1907, (Part 2, Homily 11). Translated by John Sanidopoulos.