Mary the Mother of Jesus
Angels  & Archangels
Angel in Greek means messenger
Angels are beings of light who have choosen to undertake their learning purely on the spiritual plane.
They normally take the physical image of winged messengers
however they can appear in other forms to suit the needs of the person they desire to help. 
Archangels are a certain category of Angelic being.
They are responsible for issues concerning the human race as a whole.
Two of the best known Archangels are Michael and Gabriel.
There are actually 9 orders or categories of Angels:  highest are known as Seraphim, and lowest are Angels.
There are other spiritual creatures whose names are yet not revealed to mankind.

St. Michael Archangel
{Hebrew means Who is like God}
icons painted with lily in hand

Chamuel Archangel
St. Raphael Assistance of God  
Patron Saint of blind

Jophiel Archangel Uriel Archangel
Flame of God

Raziel Archangel angel of secret regions chief of  Supreme Mysteries
Salathiel
Prayer book to God

Saint Gabriel

Selaphiel in a prayerful posture, gazing downwards, hands folded to the chest.

Jehudiel  in his right hand holds a golden crown, in his left a whip of three red (or black) branches. Barachiel on his garb are a multitude of rose blossoms.
Jeremiel -- holds in his hand balance-scales.

The Holy Scriptures are full of narratives regarding help by the angels.
Abraham sent his servant to Nahor, convincing him that the Lord would send with him His angel and would arrange for him an advantageous journey.
Two angels saved Lot and his family from the city of Sodom, which was destined for destruction.
The Patriarch Jacob, returning to his brother Esau, was encouraged by the vision of a multitude of God's angels.
Not long before his demise, while blessing his grandchildren, Jacob said to Joseph:"The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, shell bless the lads."
The angel contributed to the rescue of the Jews from Egyptian bondage.
An angel helped Joshua during the conquest of the Promised Land.
Then the angel helped the Israelite judges in repelling the enemy.
An angel saved the residents of Jerusalem from certain peril: he slew 185,000 Assyrians army surrounding the city.
An angel saved the 3 children from fire when they were thrown into a fiery furnace and later saved the Prophet Daniel, who was thrown to the lions
(Genesis 32:1–2 and 48:16; Exodus 14:19 through 23:20; Joshua 5:13-14; Judges 2:1, 6:12 and 13:3; Isaiah 37:36; Daniel 3:49, 6:22).

Appearances of the angels to men are often revealed in the New Testament.
An angel announced to Zacharias the conception of St. John the Baptist.
An angel announced to the Most Holy Virgin Mary the conception of the Savior and came to Joseph in his sleep.
A host of angels sang praises and glorified Christ's birth and an angel gave glad tidings to the shepherds of the Savior's birth, and prevented the return of the seers to Herod.

With the coming of the Son of God, appearances of angels have especially increased, a fact that the Lord predicted to the Apostles, saying that from here on heaven shall be open and they shall see "the angels of God, ascending and descending upon the son of Man."
Truly, angels served Jesus Christ during his temptations in the desert, and an angel came to support Him in the garden of Gethsemane.
Angels told the myrrh-bearers of His resurrection and told the Apostles, at His Ascension into heaven, of His second coming.
An angel freed the Apostles from prison, as well as the Apostle Peter, who was condemned to death.
An angel appeared to Cornelius and instructed him to summon the Apostle Peter so that Cornelius might be instructed in the word of God (John 1:51; Acts 5:19, 12:7-15 and 10:3-7 ).
At the same time, the angels are totally devoted to God.
When man oversteps the laws of God, an angel holds him back and even punishes him. For example, during the banishment from Eden of the people who fell into sin, the Cherubim was placed with a flaming sword to protect the gates of Paradise.
An angel with a sword stood before the prophet Balaam to impede his evil intention.
An angel struck down Herod in Cesarea for his pride.
The book of Revelation concurs that the angels punish sinners.
Nevertheless, it is important to understand that the purpose of their punishments is always benevolent: to awaken repentance in sinners and to help them to turn to God
 (Genesis ch. 3; Numbers 22:23; Acts 12:23; Revelation chs. 8–19 and 16:11).
Angels, through God's will, take part in the lives of whole nations more actively than most of us suspect.

Through the vision of the prophet Daniel, it is known that there are angels to whom God has entrusted the overseeing of the fate of kingdoms and those inhabiting the earth (Daniel chs. 10–12).

On this subject the Holy Fathers have expressed the following thoughts: "Some of them (angels) stand before the Great God, others by their cooperation uphold the whole world" (St. Gregory the Theologian, "Mystical Hymns," Homily 6 ).


From ancient times, it has been a custom of the Church to address the angels by means of prayer.
Even during the time of the Old Testament, the Hebrews had on top of the Ark of the Covenant, and later in the Holy of Holies, gold portrayals of Cherubim. The Jews used to pray before them. Between these two images of Cherubim, God spoke to Moses.
The angels manifest themselves as bearers of God's holiness; that is why it was commanded to Joshua when he saw an angel, "Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy"
(Exodus 25:18-22; 3 Kings 6:23; Joshua 5:15).
First hierarchy spirits closest to God; Thrones, Cherubim {means to be near}
and Seraphim { fieryfilled with fire each having six wings.}
second, the middle hierarchy;             Authorities, Dominions and Powers.
third, closer to us;                              Angels, Archangels and Principalities.

 Metatron Raziel Zaphkiel Zadkiel Chamuel Michael Haniel Raphael Gabriel Uriel Jophiel Ariel
Saint Gabriel
Gabriel -- with a branch from paradise, presented by him to the MostHoly Virgin, or with a shining lantern in his right hand and with a mirror made of jasper -- in his left.
Six months after Saint Michael appeared to Zachariah, Saint Gabriel appeared to Mary, who was in the royal line of King David. Her prayer, said the angel, had found favour with God, and she would be the mother of the expected Messiah. Gabriel told her that she would conceive through the power of the Holy Spirit and her son would be Jesus, the Saviour, and he would be the Son of God and would occupy the royal throne of David (Luke 1:26-33).
It was an extraordinary meeting because Mary was not yet married. Nothing is impossible with God!
Joseph, her husband-to-be, also received angelic messages advising him what steps to take in this unique situation.

Jophiel Archangel
Archangel Jophiel is the Lord of God's Yellow Ray of Wisdom, Illumination, and Constancy.
Divine Qualities  Wisdom o Illumination o Constancy * Divine Ray & Sacred Fire o Second Ray o Golden Yellow Flame * Retreat o In the Etheric Realm south of the Great Wall near Lanchow, north central China
St. Raphael
Raphael -- holds a vessel with healing medications in his left hand, and with his right hand leads Tobias, carrying the fish [for healing -- Tobit 5-8].
Patron Saint of the blind. We celebrate this Archangel's feastday with St. Michael on September 29th. He is one of the three angels known by name. In Scripture, we find the following reference to the Archangel Raphael: "And Raphael was sent to heal the two of them: to scale away the white films of Tobit's eyes; to give Sarah the daughter of Raguel in marriage to Tobias the son of Tobit, and to bind Asmodeus the evil demon, because Tobias was entitled to possess her. At that very moment Tobit returned and entered his house and Sarah the daughter of Raguel came down from her upper room." [Tob 3:17, RSV]
Chamuel Archangel
Archangel Chamuel is the Lord of God's Pink Ray  of Love, Adoration, and Gratitude.
"I AM the Archangel Chamuel, and with Me, My Beloved Consort Charity. We serve on the Third Ray, from the Heart of God, of Love. But I come today to project from My Heart the most intense Ray of Love. The Love Ray, beloved hearts, that will not be stopped, will not be interfered with, but will go on - and keep going until It finds It's Home back in the Great Central Sun.
 
Uriel Archangel
Uriel -- in raised right hand hold a bare sword at the level of his chest, and in his lowered left hand -- "a fiery flame".
Archangel Uriel is the Lord of God's Purple, Gold, & Ruby Ray of Service, Ministration, and Peace.
 * Divine Qualities  o Service o Ministration o Peace * Divine Ray & Sacred Fire o Sisth Ray o Purple, Gold, & Ruby Flame * Retreat    o In the Etheric Realm over the Tatra Mountains south of Krakow, Poland.
 
Raziel Archangel
= ("secret of God," "angel of mysteries")
The Archangel Raziel is the angel of the secret regions and chief of the Supreme Mysteries.  In the Kabbalah, Raziel is the personification of Chokmah (divine wisdom), 2nd in the holy sefiroh.  Raziel is the legendary author of The Book of the Angel Raziel (Sefer Raziel), "wherein all celestial and earthly knowledge is set down."  Legend has it that the angel Raziel handed his book (knowledge) to Adam and Eve after the "Fall" so that they would know the mysteries of the Universe and be able to find their way HOME.  In this book was the explanation of all of creation, and of how to manifest and create on the Earth.  It is considered a book of "Magic."
It is said that many of the great Ancient Prophets learned form the archangel Raziel, including Abraham & Sarah, Rachel, Noah, Solomon, Elijah, and many more.
In further connection with The Book of the Angel Raziel, The Zohar reports that in the middle of the book there occurs a secret writing "explaining the 1,500 keys (to the mysteries of the World) which were not revealed even to the holy angels." 
St. Michael the Archangel (Hebrew "Who is like God?").
Michael -- tramples the devil underfoot, and in his left hand holds a green date-tree branch, and in his right hand -- a spear with a white banner (or sometimes a fiery sword), on which is outlined a scarlet cross.

St. Michael is one of the principal angels; his name was the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against the enemy and his followers. Four times his name is recorded in Scripture:

(1) Daniel 10:13 sqq., Gabriel says to Daniel, when he asks God to permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem: "The Angel [D.V. prince] of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me...and, behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me...and none is my helper in all these things, but Michael your prince";
(2) Daniel 12, the Angel speaking of the end of the world and the Antichrist says: "At that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people."
(3) In the Catholic Epistle of St. Jude: "When Michael the Archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses", etc. St. Jude alludes to an ancient Jewish tradition of a dispute between Michael and Satan over the body of Moses, an account of which is also found in the apocryphal book on the assumption of Moses (Origen, "De principiis", III, 2, 2). St. Michael concealed the tomb of Moses; Satan, however, by disclosing it, tried to seduce the Jewish people to the sin of hero-worship. St. Michael also guards the body of Eve, according to the "Revelation of Moses" ("Apocryphal Gospels", etc., ed. A. Walker, Edinburgh, p. 647).
(4) Apocalypse 12:7, "And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon." St. John speaks of the great conflict at the end of time, which reflects also the battle in heaven at the beginning of time. According to the Fathers there is often question of St. Michael in Scripture where his name is not mentioned. They say he was the cherub who stood at the gate of paradise, "to keep the way of the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24), the angel through whom God published the Decalogue to his chosen people, the angel who stood in the way against Balaam (Numbers 22:22 sqq.), the angel who routed the army of Sennacherib (IV Kings 19:35).
Following these Scriptural passages, Christian tradition gives to St. Michael four offices:

    * To fight against Satan.
    * To rescue the souls of the faithful from the power of the enemy, especially at the hour of death.
    * To be the champion of God's people, the Jews in the Old Law, the Christians in the New Testament; therefore he was the patron of the Church, and of the orders of knights during the Middle Ages.
    * To call away from earth and bring men's souls to judgment ("signifer S. Michael repraesentet eas in lucam sanctam", Offert. Miss Defunct. "Constituit eum principem super animas suscipiendas", Antiph. off. Cf. "Hermas", Pastor, I, 3, Simil. VIII, 3).

Regarding his rank in the celestial hierarchy opinions vary; St. Basil (Hom. de angelis) and other Greek Fathers, also Salmeron, Bellarmine, etc., place St. Michael over all the angels; they say he is called "archangel" because he is the prince of the other angels; others (cf. P. Bonaventura, op. cit.) believe that he is the prince of the seraphim, the first of the nine angelic orders.
But, according to St. Thomas (Summa Ia.113.3) he is the prince of the last and lowest choir, the angels.
The Roman Liturgy seems to follow the Greek Fathers; it calls him "Princeps militiae coelestis quem honorificant angelorum cives".
The hymn of the Mozarabic Breviary places St. Michael even above the Twenty-four Elders.
The Greek Liturgy styles him Archistrategos, "highest general" (cf. Menaea, 8 Nov. and 6 Sept.).

VENERATION
It would have been natural to St. Michael, the champion of the Jewish people, to be the champion also of Christians, giving victory in war to his clients. The early Christians, however, regarded some of the martyrs as their military patrons: St. George, St. Theodore, St. Demetrius, St. Sergius, St. Procopius, St. Mercurius, etc.; but to St. Michael they gave the care of their sick. At the place where he was first venerated, in Phrygia, his prestige as angelic healer obscured his interposition in military affairs. It was from early times the centre of the true cult of the holy angels, particularly of St. Michael. Tradition relates that St. Michael in the earliest ages caused a medicinal spring to spout at Chairotopa near Colossae, where all the sick who bathed there, invoking the Blessed Trinity and St. Michael, were cured.
   Still more famous are the springs which St. Michael is said to have drawn from the rock at Colossae (Chonae, the present Khonas, on the Lycus). The pagans directed a stream against the sanctuary of St. Michael to destroy it, but the archangel split the rock by lightning to give a new bed to the stream, and sanctified forever the waters which came from the gorge. The Greeks claim that this apparition took place about the middle of the first century and celebrate a feast in commemoration of it on 6 September (Analecta Bolland., VIII, 285-328).
Also at Pythia in Bithynia and elsewhere in Asia the hot springs were dedicated to St. Michael.
   At Constantinople likewise, St. Michael was the great heavenly physician. His principal sanctuary, the Michaelion, was at Sosthenion, some fifty miles south of Constantinople; there the archangel is said to have appeared to the Emperor Constantine. The sick slept in this church at night to wait for a manifestation of St. Michael; his feast was kept there 9 June.
   Another famous church was within the walls of the city, at the thermal baths of the Emperor Arcadius; there the synaxis of the archangel was celebrated 8 November. This feast spread over the entire Greek Church, and the Syrian, Armenian, and Coptic Churches adopted it also; it is now the principal feast of St. Michael in the Orient. It may have originated in Phrygia, but its station at Constantinople was the Thermae of Arcadius (Martinow, "Annus Graeco-slavicus", 8 Nov.).
   Other feasts of St. Michael at Constantinople were: 27 October, in the "Promotu" church; 18 June, in the Church of St. Julian at the Forum; and 10 December, at Athaea.

   The Christians of Egypt placed their life-giving river, the Nile under the protection of St. Michael; they adopted the Greek feast and kept it 12 November; on the twelfth of every month they celebrate a special commemoration of the archangel, but 12 June, when the river commences to rise, they keep as a holiday of obligation the feast of St. Michael "for the rising of the Nile", euche eis ten symmetron anabasin ton potamion hydaton.
 
   At Rome the Leonine Sacramentary (sixth century) has the "Natale Basilicae Angeli via Salaria", 30 September; of the five Masses for the feast three mention St. Michael.
The Gelasian Sacramentary (seventh century) gives the feast "S. Michaelis Archangeli", and the Gregorian Sacramentary (eighth century), "Dedicatio Basilionis S. Angeli Michaelis", 29 Sept. A manuscript also here adds "via Salaria" (Ebner, "Miss. Rom. Iter Italicum", 127). This church of the Via Salaria was six miles to the north of the city; in the ninth century it was called Basilica Archangeli in Septimo (Armellini, "Chiese di Roma", p. 85). It disappeared a thousand years ago.

At Rome also the part of heavenly physician was given to St. Michael. According to an (apocryphal?) legend of the tenth century he appeared over the Moles Hadriani (Castel di S. Angelo), in 950, during the procession which St. Gregory held against the pestilence, putting an end to the plague. Boniface IV (608-15) built on the Moles Hadriani in honour of him, a church, which was styled St. Michaelis inter nubes (in summitate circi).
 
Well known is the apparition of St. Michael (a. 494 or 530-40), as related in the Roman Breviary, 8 May,
at his renowned sanctuary on Monte Gargano, where his original glory as patron in war was restored to him.

To his intercession the Lombards of Sipontum (Manfredonia) attributed their victory over the Greek Neapolitans, 8 May, 663. In commemoration of this victory the church of Sipontum instituted a special feast in honour of the archangel, on 8 May, which has spread over the entire Latin Church and is now called (since the time of Pius V) "Apparitio S. Michaelis", although it originally did not commemorate the apparition, but the victory.
   In Normandy St. Michael is the patron of mariners in his famous sanctuary at Mont-Saint-Michel in the Diocese of Coutances. He is said to have appeared there, in 708, to St. Aubert, Bishop of Avranches.
In Normandy his feast "S. Michaelis in periculo maris" or "in Monte Tumba" was universally celebrated on 18 Oct., the anniversary of the dedication of the first church, 16 Oct., 710; the feast is now confined to the Diocese of Coutances.
   In Germany, after its evangelization, St. Michael replaced for the Christians the pagan god Wotan, to whom many mountains were sacred, hence the numerous mountain chapels of St. Michael all over Germany.
The hymns of the Roman Office are said composed by St. Rabanus Maurus of Fulda (d. 856).

In art St. Michael is represented as an angelic warrior, fully armed with helmet, sword, and shield (often the shield bears the Latin inscription: Quis ut Deus), standing over the dragon, whom he sometimes pierces with a lance. He also holds a pair of scales in which he weighs the souls of the departed (cf. Rock, "The Church of Our Fathers", III, 160), or the book of life, to show that he takes part in the judgment. His feast (29 September) in the Middle Ages was celebrated as a holy day of obligation, but along with several other feasts it was gradually abolished since the eighteenth century.

Michaelmas Day, in England and other countries, is one of the regular quarter-days for settling rents and accounts; but it is no longer remarkable for the hospitality with which it was formerly celebrated. Stubble-geese being esteemed in perfection about this time, most families had one dressed on Michaelmas Day. In some parishes (Isle of Skye) they had a procession on this day and baked a cake, called St. Michael's bannock.

He was sent twice to the prophet Daniel. On the second occasion Daniel was at prayer, and Gabriel, "being caused to fly swiftly, touched me...and talked with me" and proceeded to prophesy the date of the first coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ (Daniel 9:21-27). There was therefore great expectation among the Jews at the time when Jesus Christ was about to be born, and this was heightened by the personal appearance of Gabriel again, firstly to Zacharias the priest while on duty in the temple, and then to Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph. To Zacharias, the angel announced. "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God: and am sent to speak unto thee" (Luke 1:19).
We notice that angels can stand in the glorious presence of the LORD. whereas men cannot. and angels are sent to do whatever God wishes. His mission here was to announce the miraculous birth of John the Baptist.