enneagram — Faithful living for ordinary saints

September 29 is Michaelmas (Michael + mass just like Christ + mass = Christmas), the feast of St. Michael and All Angels. If I’m being completely honest, angels are an elusive topic to me that I rarely think about because reading Revelation weirds me out a little bit.

But this year Amelia is attending a Catholic school and she’s had to memorize The Guardian Angel prayer, a classic for Catholics. I’ll admit, I had my qualms with it at first: the rhyming felt kitschy (jokes on me—it was actually written by a monk in the 11th century) and directing prayers to an angel upset my Protestant sensibilities (we can discuss that another time). Nonetheless, Amelia had to learn it, so we taped it to the door and read it each morning before she left for school.

And you know what? Reciting that prayer day after day changed something in me. That small act of praying so directly for God’s angels to protect my five year old before I send her out the door each morning eased anxieties I didn’t even know I had. Anxieties about her safety, about her not making friends, about whether or not the friends she made would be good ones, and—if I’m being honest—about her being the victim of another school shooting. I’m an Enneagram Six, and worst case scenarios are constantly flashing in my mind.

But reciting that prayer every morning became an act of holding those fears and worst case scenarios up to God and releasing them. It’s a reminder that when Amelia walks out our door, she is in God’s hands, that I am in God’s hands, and that this whole crazy and sometimes terrifying world is, too.

So this Sunday, I’m going to suck it up and read Revelation 12 and be reminded once again that in the battle between God’s angels and the forces of evil, God wins. Always. And then we are going to keep praying that little prayer each morning even though we don’t have to anymore.

If you’d like a copy, you can download it here. I even wrote a Protestant version for all my kindred spirits.

And if you’d like resources on celebrating Michaelmas, I recommend this Step-by-Step guide as well as this post on Michaelmas Traditions by Haley Stewart, who runs a blog called…wait for it….Carrots for Michaelmas.

Happy Michaelmas!