The good news is I passed under the lorry though I missed that Mass and ended up in the Radcliffe Infirmary. I remain convinced St Michael and his angels were sent by God to protect my life for a purpose.
Four years later that purpose was revealed. I left my work at Oxford University and the nuclear power station at Harwell to train as a priest.
The angels who shifted the lorry, or my scooter, helped shift my career their way. I say ‘their way’ because angels and priests have the same mission: to bring God’s love to people and people to God’s love. We are both in divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.
Both ministries are about serving God and the church so church members are made better servants of the message of salvation. We are all caught up with the angels in worship of the God we cannot see and in witnessing him to our neighbour in deed and word. The joy of the angels over sinners who turn to God is for us as well.
Michaelmas day reminds us how God delights to work indirectly through his creatures, angels or men. The angels who watch over us do so as an expression of the love of a God who so many times prefers to do good through his willing servants, earthly or heavenly.
In the Eucharist we are promised the support of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in lifting ourselves through, with and in Jesus Christ to the Father whose face the angels see and whose sight is promised to us on the day we ourselves will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. (John 1:51).
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