Feast of Saint Michael & the Archangels (Michaelmas)

The Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels (Michaelmas)

The Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, or Michaelmas, is celebrated on September 29th in Western Christianity and November 8th in Eastern Orthodoxy, honoring the Archangel Michael, who is known as the leader of heaven's armies.

Traditionally it was a time to cultivate courage to face the coming colder, darker days of winter.

It is rooted in the Christian tradition of Archangel Michael battling evil, often represented as a dragon, symbolizing the triumph of light and strength over darkness and fear. The feast also honors Saint Gabriel, the messenger who announced to Mary that she would bear Jesus, and Saint Raphael, the healer and guide in the Book of Tobit.

The feast day also incorporates veneration for all angels and marks the end of the harvest season.

Traditions include prayers to Saint Michael, eating traditional foods like goose, and folklore that says blackberries should not be picked after this day.

The rule (not theological, of course) reflects a practical truth: by late autumn, blackberries often become overripe, mouldy, infested with insects, or damaged by frost botanical. Folklore turned this natural decline in to a warning.

Famous apparitions of Saint Michael the Archangel include:

The 5th-century appearance at Monte Gargano, Italy, where Saint Michael consecrated a cave.

The 5th-century appearance to fishermen at St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, England.

The 6th-century apparition to Pope Gregory the Great in Rome during a plague, leading to the renaming of Hadrian's Mole to Castel Sant'Angelo.

The 8th-century vision to Bishop Aubert of Avranches at Mont-Saint-Michel, France.