Saints' feast days celebrate their death as their entry into heaven through a new birth. We need other reasons, however, to set a day to honour Angels. Today's feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, is actually the date of a church erected in Rome in the fifth century in honour of the Archangel Michael. The Apocalypse attests that Michael is the protector of God's people. A church dedicated in his honour is a reminder that the Church, is God's way of offering us divine grace, the grace which protects us from sin and evil.

Honouring the three archangels together in one feast is a lesson in understanding the focus and range of God's grace. Gabriel was the angel of the Annunciation, and each mention of his name is a remembrance of the great gift of the Incarnation. Michael's name means "Who is like God". The protection which he offers is subsumed in the saving grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by which we become children of God and become like God. During his public life, Jesus' saving grace frequently touched people's lives through healing, a fact recalled through Raphael, the name of the healing angel in the book of Tobit.