Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION
	Did you ever notice how often the angels are referred to during Mass? We commonly meet them in the Confiteor (“I ask blessed Mary, every virgin, all the angels and saints”), prefaces (“with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven”), the Roman Canon (“we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice”), and Eucharistic Prayer IV (“countless hosts of angels stand before you to do your will”). Last week and this week angels abound as we celebrated Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael yesterday and will honor the Guardian Angels on October 2.
	September 29 was originally the feast day for Michael alone. Gabriel and Raphael joined him in the 1969 reform of the Church calendar. The celebration of the Guardian Angels has been observed since the sixteenth century in Spain. Pope Clement X assigned the feast to the first free day after St. Michael’s in 1670, and there it has remained. Take some time this week to reflect on these, God’s messengers and our protectors, and maybe even celebrate with a little angel food cake!
—Rev. James Field