What’s in a name?

Mary O’Regan on St Michael the Archangel

I used to feel guilty that “Michael” is my favourite name. After all, should I not have the Holy Name of God as my favourite? It dawned on me that the Holy Name is contained within Michael because it means, “Who is like unto God?” I grappled with this when I was doing pro-life work because I often encouraged a mother in great difficulty to call her baby Michael. I made an enemy of a pro-abortion midwife who found it troubling that she had so many mothers calling their sons after the Archangel. But her efforts to sway the mothers towards abortion were blocked, almost as though a shield had been created over the babies.

For his feast day on 29 September, I’d like to put Michael forth as the grandest angelic warrior in the pro-life battle, because the fight against abortion is always a struggle against Satan and we’d do well to make this better known. Holy cards with a picture of St Michael and the prayer to him could be handed out at abortion clinics. Might we get called freaks because we give others a picture of the Archangel skewering Satan? Yes, but alerting people to the reality of spiritual warfare is more important than protecting ourselves against insults and we are also showing a benevolent and supremely powerful Archangel who wishes to wage war on their behalf.

Might we all encourage more children to be named after him? And not just women in crisis pregnancies? My native Ireland once had the greatest number of men called Michael in the world; this has dipped unfortunately, in accordance with the decline in Mass attendance. Is it mere coincidence that the New Mass usually does not conclude with the prayer to St Michael and that the name has been given to fewer children?

We must do as St Gertrude the Great did. Once on Michael’s feast day, she was at Mass and she offered the Body and Blood of Jesus in honour of the Archangels. When Our Lord had accepted her offering, Gertrude saw every angelic choir lean towards her and promise, “We will guard thee with special care.” Then Michael came surrounded by the other Archangels and they said, “We will discover to you the Divine secrets.”

If we offer Communion in honour of the Archangels, we too may be rewarded with every angelic choir promising to guard us and to reveal Divine secrets to us, for Holy Michael is leader of all the angels and when the entire nine choirs and the other six archangels gave Gertrude these pledges they were acting under Michael’s command.

On her deathbed, Gertrude saw Michael when he came to tackle the demons that presented themselves to her. This is perhaps Michael’s most urgent role – safeguarding the souls of the dying. St Anselm, the 11th century Archbishop of Canterbury, saw St Michael fight off attacks made by the devil on a dying monk. The devil provoked this monk by telling him he had sinned before his baptism, but St Michael swiftly assured him that these sins had been washed away by baptism. Then the evil one tried to sow despair when he stirred up in the man a sense that he’d committed sins after baptism but, again, St Michael appeared and reminded him that he had confessed them. Lastly, the devil came at the monk with a huge book in which he claimed was written every detail of his mistakes as a religious. St Michael assuaged the dying monk’s fears that his minor infractions had been forgiven through his many penances.

Anyone who has assisted the dying might encourage them to enlist the aid of Michael. You may like to share this prayer with friends and family:

“St Michael, when the hour of my death comes, assist me in my agony, defend me in the last fight, so that my soul may not perish in the judgment which I dread.”

When you show that you take the last agony and the final combat for the soul seriously, you will influence the people surrounding you.

St Michael has a history of warning his followers of the date of their deaths – he appeared to St Wilfrid and informed him that he had exactly four years left. This may well be a grace you wish to pray for; it certainly helps to know the date of the most important battle of your life.

How encouraging to contemplate that the lives of the unborn may be saved and the dying may have their eternal souls protected, if we place them neath Michael’s shield.