St Michael 2014 - Fr Seraphim Aldea

The first of them is, I have always been afraid

of Saint Michael, and I have always loved Saint

Gabriel. Because the two of them represent, at

least to me, two very different, from our perspectives

at least, very different sides of God. Saint

Michael is the protector of the faith, the protector

of the truth. The one who has banished Satan

from God's kingdom by tradition. We see him with

that sword banishing Satan. He is always painted

at the entry into the altar to remind priests

and deacons and everyone who goes in where we

are going in. So he is like this guardian of

God's truth and of the true faith. Whereas Saint

Gabriel is always the one who brings happiness

in people's lives. He's always the one who brings

joy. He's always the one bringing the good news.

Every time you meet him in the Gospels, you know

something wonderful is about to happen. And that

makes it so much easier to love him and to pray

to him and to cherish him. I suppose a more subjective

reason why I'm so afraid of St. Michael is that

my abbot's name was Michael. And that doesn't

help for the rest of one's life. You have this

image of authority in front of you. But the two

of them together are actually the fullness of

what we know about God Himself. About the whole

revelation. Because if you take away love. And

you are left. Only with truth. You don't have

God. And if you take away the truth. And you

hold on to some sort of love. Without truth.

Again that is not God. Strangely I am reminded

by. Do you know that icon of Christ. From Mount

Sinai. The one where. Half of Christ is. the

right judge and he looks quite frightening and

the other half is very loving and embracing and

forgiving in the same image, the same face. I

think the two archangels together have the same

effect and they present both sides of our encounter

with divinity. And then I also love them for

the same reason I've always loved The cherubim

and the seraphim and the angels and all the bodiless

hosts. Because they remind me that I myself and

each of you are not purely bodily beings. Yes,

our bodies are made of earth. The dust we step

on when we go outside is the same material we

are made of. That's where we come from. But that's

not where we are supposed to get to. We are supposed

to be spiritual and bodily at the same time.

In our own beings there is something of that

duality that you've seen in St Michael and St

Gabriel. We are bodies and souls. We are not

just bodies or just souls. If you see just a

body, like a dead body face, Somebody who's died.

That is not a human being, because the soul is

not over there. And a bodiless being, just the

soul, just the spirit, is also not a human being.

A human being is the two combined. That's what

makes us who we are, body and soul. It's strange

to think, isn't it, that this world, is not populated

just by us it's not just us the bodies we see

and touch and we embrace and I have no idea what's

going on right here to the right of me and I

don't know who's here to the left of me I don't

know what's going on I know by tradition that

all around us there is this huge unseen warfare

this huge spiritual battlefield if you want to

imagine it that way and we live our lives our

physical lives in the middle of this spiritual

battlefield and now and again one arrow from

one side or the other will just pierce us and

we'll feel a huge temptation and we don't know

why or we'll feel this extraordinary need to

just kneel down and pray with all our being and

we don't know why well it's because all around

us something is going on all around us these

beings mind their own fight for our sake for

our sake and we are somewhere in between we are

in between this you know perfectly bodily creation

the seas and the mountains and the rocks and

the trees they just matter and the uncreated

or that's not the right way to say it the created

but the the non -bodily creation of god like

the archangels we celebrate today we are in between

them we are a combination of the two We are supposed

to take this dust that we are made of and turn

it into something spiritual. I can tell you that,

at least in our villages in Romania, the love

and the affection people have for the holy archangels

is beyond imagination. They are by far some of

the most loved. People pray to them, people love

them, people ask for their support. The two names

Gabriel and Michael are perhaps some of the most

popular. There is beauty in knowing that what

we see is so little, so poor, and that our lives,

the lives we shall become part of after we live

this life, that life is so much richer, so much

more diverse and extraordinary and exciting,

and use whatever words you want. We shall have

brothers and sisters that are not of our own

race. We are one creation with the thrones and

the dominions and the archangels. Think about

it. Think of that honor. Think of that beauty.

And do pray to the holy archangels because they've

helped so many people, this silly monk included,

that it would be such a pity to waste their help.

We don't know what's around us, but they do.

We can't fight the evilness around us. but they

can we don't know what's beyond the leap so to

say of death beyond that edge we don't know what

expects us but they do and they can be there

taking us by our hands and leading us and protecting

us I know it's Father Michael's name day, and

I assume there are others here or in the parish

whose name day we celebrate today. And I can

only just pray that, you know, you are protectors

of the faith and of the truth, like Saint Michael,

but without letting go of the joy and of the

love of Saint Gabriel.