Saint Michael the Archangel is often depicted wielding a sword and a set
of scales to vanquish Satan. His scales have an ancient and surprising
meaning.
This world of concrete and steel in which we prisoners live is very plain, but far from simple. It’s a world almost entirely devoid of what Saint Michael the Archangel brings to the equation between God and us. It’s also a world devoid of evidence of self-expression. Prisoners eat the same food, wear the same uniforms, and live in cells that all look alike.
OFF THE WALL, AND ON
In these cells, the concrete walls and ceilings are white – or were at one time – the concrete floors are gray, and the concrete counter running halfway along one wall is dark green. On a section of wall for each prisoner is a two-by-four foot green rectangle for posting family photos, a calendar and religious items. The wall contains the sole evidence of self-expression in prison, and you can learn a lot about a person from what’s posted there.
My friend, Pornchai, whose section of wall is next to mine,
had just a blank wall two years ago. Today, not a square inch
of green shows through his artifacts of hope. There are
photos of Joe and Karen Corvino, the foster parents whose
patience impacted his life, and Charlene Duline and Pierre
Matthews, his new Godparents. There’s also an old photo of
the home in Thailand from which he was taken at age 11, photos
of some of the ships described at my blog (www.TheseStoneWalls.com) in a post titled, “Come, Sail Away!” now at
anchor in new homes. There’s also a rhinoceros – no clue why
– and Garfield the Cat. In between are beautiful icons of the
Blessed Mother, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Saint Pio, and one of
Saint Michael the Archangel that somehow migrated from my wall
over to Pornchai’s.
My own wall evolved over time. The only family photos I had are long lost, and I haven’t seen my family in many years. It happens to just about every prisoner after ten years or so. In my first twelve years in prison I was moved sixteen times, and each time I had to quickly take my family photos off the wall. Like many prisoners here for a long, long time, there came a day when I took my memories down to move, then just didn’t put them back up again. A year ago, I had nothing on the wall, then a strange transformation of that small space began to take shape.
When These Stone Walls – the blog, not the concrete ones – began
last year, some readers started sending me beautiful
icons and holy cards. The prison allows them in mail as long
as they’re not laminated in plastic. Some made their way onto
my wall, and slowly over the last year it filled with color
and meaning again.
It’s a mystery why, but the most frequent image sent to me by
TSW readers is that of Saint Michael the Archangel. There are
five distinct icons of him on the wall, plus the one that
seems to prefer Pornchai’s side. These stone walls – the
concrete ones, not the blog – are filled with companions now.
There’s another icon of Saint Michael on my coffee cup – the
only other place prisoners always leave their mark – and yet
another inside and above the cell door. That one was placed
there by my friend, Alberto Ramos, who went to prison at age
14 and turned 30 last week. It appeared a few months ago.
Alberto’s religious roots are in Caribbean Santeria. He said
Saint Michael above the door protects this cell from evil. He
said this world and this prison greatly need Saint Michael.
WHO IS LIKE GOD?
The references to the Archangel Michael are few and cryptic in
the canon of Hebrew and Christian Scripture. In the apocalyptic
visions of the Book of Daniel, he is Michael, your Prince,
”who stands beside the sons of your people.” In Daniel 12:1
he is the guardian and protector angel of Israel and its
people, and the “Great Prince” in Heaven who came to the aid
of the Archangel Gabriel in his contest with the Angel of
Persia (Daniel 10:13, 21).
His name in Hebrew – Mikha’el – means “Who is like God?” It’s
posed as a question that answers itself. No one, of course,
is like God. A subsidiary meaning is, “Who bears the image of
God,” and in this Michael is the archetype in Heaven of what
man himself was created to be: the image and likeness of God. Some other depictions of the Archangel Michael show him with a
shield bearing the image of Christ. In this sense, Michael is
a personification, as we’ll see below, of the principle
attribute of God throughout Scripture.
Outside of Daniel’s apocalyptic vision, the Archangel Michael
appears only two more times in the canon of Sacred Scripture.
In Revelation 12:7-9 he leads the army of God in a great and
final battle against the army of Satan. A very curious
mention in the Epistle of Saint Jude (Jude 1:9) describes
Saint Michael’s dispute with Satan over the body of Moses.
This is a direct reference to an account in the Apocrypha, and
demonstrates the importance and familiarity of some of the
apocryphal writings in the Israelite and early Christian
communities. Saint Jude writes of the account as though it is
quite familiar to his readers. In the Assumption of Moses in
the apocryphal Book of Enoch, Michael prevails over Satan,
wins the body of Moses, and accompanies him into Heaven.
It is because of this account that Moses and Elijah appear
with Jesus in the account of the Transfiguration in Matthew
11. Moses and Elijah are the two figures in the Hebrew
Scriptures to hear the voice of God on Mount Sinai, and to be
assumed bodily into Heaven – escorted by Saint Michael the
Archangel according to the Aggadah, the collection of
milennia of rabbinic lore and custom.
SAINT MICHAEL AS THE DIVINE MEASURE OF SOULS
In each of the seven images of Saint Michael the Archangel sent to me by TSW readers, he is depicted brandishing a sword in triumph over Satan subdued at his feet. In five of the icons, he also holds a set of scales above the head of Satan. A lot of people confuse the scales with those of “Lady Justice” the famous American icon. Those scales symbolize the equal application of law and justice in America. It’s a high ideal, but one that too often isn’t met in the American justice system. I cited some examples in “The Eighth Commandment.”
The scales of Saint Michael also depict justice, but of
another sort. Presumably that’s why so many readers sent me
his image, and I much appreciate it. However, some research
uncovered a far deeper symbolic meaning for the Archangel’s
scales. The primary purpose of the scales is not to measure
justice, but to weigh souls. And there’s a specific factor
that registers on Saint Michael’s scales. They depict his
role as the measure of mercy, the highest attribute of God for
which Saint Michael is the personification. The capacity for
mercy is what it most means to be in the image and likeness of
God. The primary role of Saint Michael the Archangel is to be
the advocate of justice and mercy in perfect balance – for
justice without mercy is little more than vengeance.
That’s why God limits vengeance as summary justice. In Genesis chapter 4, Lamech, a descendant of Cain, vows that “if Cain is avenged seven-fold then Lamech is avenged seventy-seven fold.” Jesus later corrects this misconception of justice by instructing Peter to forgive “seventy times seven times.”
Our English word, “Mercy” doesn’t actually capture the full
meaning of what is intended in the Hebrew Scriptures as the
other side of the justice equation. The word in Hebrew is
”hesed,” and it has multiple tiers of meaning. It was
translated into New Testament Greek as “eleos,” and then
translated into Latin as “misericordia” from which we derive
the English word, “mercy.” Saint Michael’s scales measure
”hesed,” which in its most basic sense means to act with
altruism for the good of another without anything of obvious
value in return. It’s the exercise of mercy for its own sake,
a mercy that is the highest value of Judeo-Christian faith.
Sacred Scripture is filled with examples of hesed as the chief attribute of God and what it means to be in His image. That ”the mercy of God endures forever” is the central and repeated message of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The references are too many to name, but as I was writing this post, I spontaneously thought of a few lines from Psalm 85:
“Mercy and faithfulness shall meet. Justice and peace
shall kiss. Truth shall spring up from the Earth, and
justice shall look down from Heaven.” (Psalm 85:10-11).
The domino effect of hesed-mercy is demonstrated in Psalm 85. Faithfulness and truth will arise out of it, and together all three will comprise justice. In researching this, I found a single, ancient rabbinic reference attributing authorship of Psalm 85 to the only non-human instrument of any Psalm or verse of Scripture: Saint Michael the Archangel, himself. According to that legend, Psalm 85 was given by the Archangel along with the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Saint Thomas Aquinas described Saint Michael as “the breath of
the Redeemer’s spirit who will, at the end of the world,
combat and destroy the Anti-Christ as he did Lucifer in the
beginning.” This is why St. Michael is sometimes depicted bearing a shield with the image of Christ. It is the image of Christ in His passion, imprinted upon the veil of St. Veronica. Veronica is a name that appears no where in Scripture, but is simply a name assigned by tradition to the unnamed woman with the veil. The name Veronica comes from the Latin “vera icon” meaning “true image.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas and many Doctors of the Church regarded Saint
Michael as the angel of Exodus who, as a pillar of cloud and
fire, led Israel out of slavery. Christian tradition gives to
Saint Michael four offices: To fight against Satan, to measure
and rescue the souls of the just at the hour of death, to
attend the dying and accompany the just to judgment, and to be
the Champion and Protector of the Church.
His feast day, assigned since 1970 to the three Archangels of Scripture, was originally assigned to Saint Michael alone since the sixth century dedication of a church in Rome in his honor. The feast was originally called Michaelmas meaning, “The Mass of St. Michael.” The great prayer to Saint Michael, however, is relatively new. It was penned on October 13, 1884, by Pope Leo XIII after a terrifying vision of Saint Michael’s battle with Satan:
“St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our
protection against the wickedness and snares of the
devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, 0
Prince of the heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast
into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about
the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”
It’s an important prayer for the Church, especially now. I asked Suzanne to place a permanent image of Saint Michael on These Stone Walls as well.
I know the enemies of
the Church lurk here, too. There are some who come here not
for understanding, or the truth, but for ammunition. For them
the very concept of mercy, forgiveness, and inner healing is
anathema to their true cause. I once scoffed at the notion
that evil surrounds us, but I have seen it. I think every
person falsely accused has seen it.
Donald Spinner, mentioned in “Loose Ends and Dangling
Participles,” gave Pornchai a prayer that was published by the
prison ministry of the Paulist Catholic Evangelization
Association (www.pncea.org). Pornchai asked me to mention it
in this post. It’s a prayer that perfectly captures the meaning of Saint Michael the Archangel’s Scales of Hesed:
Prayer for Justice and Mercy
“Jesus, united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, give us your compassion for those in prison. Mend in mercy the broken in mind and memory. Soften the hard of heart, the captives of anger. Free the innocent; parole the trustworthy. Awaken the repentance that restores hope. May prisoners’ families persevere in their love. Jesus, heal the victims of crime; they live with the scars. Lift to eternal peace those who die. Grant victims and their families the forgiveness that heals. Give wisdom to lawmakers and those who judge. Instill prudence and patience in those who guard. Make those in prison ministry bearers of your light, for ALL of us are in need of your mercy! Amen.”
Father Gordon J. MacRae is a Spero News columnist, and a prisoner in the New Hampshire State Prison. You can read his story at www.TheseStoneWalls.com.
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