Feast of the Archangel Michael
(6 September) Commemoration of the Miracle of Saint Michael at Colossae
Michael, leader of the heavenly hosts, is the one who, with his faithful angels, fought against proud Satan and his evil angels and cast him out of heaven, saying to him: “Who is like God?” This is the meaning of his name, “Michael”: Who is like God, as we read in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 12:7). The holy Church has taken him as protector and defender of herself and of her children.
Today she celebrates him in memory of the miracle he worked in the city of Colossae, known from the letter of Saint Paul.
In that city there was a church dedicated to Saint Michael, and near it a spring where people came to be healed of their illnesses by washing in it, through the sign of the holy Cross and the intercession of Saint Michael. A pagan man had an only daughter, ten years old, who had been mute from birth. He saw a great crowd of Christians washing and being healed, and he asked them what they said when they sprinkled themselves with the water.
They answered: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and through the intercession of Michael the Archangel.” He did as they did and gave his daughter some of the water to drink; she was healed at once and began to speak. The man came to believe, together with his family and some of his friends.
The pagans were enraged and resolved to destroy the church by diverting the waters of the spring against it. The keeper of the church was a devout man from Hierapolis named Archippus, devoted to Saint Michael and given to much prayer and penance. The pagans gathered and began digging behind the church and around the spring in order to turn the waters against it.
Fearing the worst, Archippus began to implore God and call upon Saint Michael, and he stood praying in the church. When the pagans had finished digging, they came by night to release the waters as a flood that would strike the church and bring it down. Then the Archangel Michael appeared with the power of the Lord of hosts; with a staff in his hand he struck a great rock near the church and split it open, and the waters poured down into it, leaving the church unharmed.
The pagans were put to shame, and many of them believed. The Christians grew firmer in their faith, in their veneration of Saint Michael and in their trust in his intercession. From that time on they kept a special feast in memory of this wonderful miracle. According to tradition, this took place around the second century.
May his prayers be with us. Amen.
Maronite Synaxarion
