In 1929, with the world at peace, G.K. Chesterton wrote a prayer to St. Michael, the warrior archangel. For Michaelmas, Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski read "To St. Michael in Time of Peace" and ask what Chesterton saw coming that made him call on Michael then—and why he still counted Gabriel, stooping to greet a peasant girl, the more glorious angel.

In This Episode:

• The Pope Leo XIII backstory behind the poem: his Prayer to St. Michael, and a famous 1884 vision no one has traced to a source
• Why G.K. Chesterton prayed to the warrior archangel in a year of peace: he sensed what he called Prussianism returning
• The poem's image of St. Michael at the Crucifixion, hand on the hilt, holding back his legions until Christ said "It is finished"
• Chesterton's warning against a peace kept by money
• A 1926 G.K.'s Weekly passage where Chesterton, arguing against Nietzsche, calls St. Gabriel stooping to greet the peasant girl more glorious than St. Michael striking down the traitor, and how Joe connects it to the single feast the three archangels now share

Resources Mentioned:

• To St. Michael in Time of Peace by G.K. Chesterton
• Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton
• Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
• "A Word with Dr. Oscar Levy" by G.K. Chesterton, G.K.'s Weekly, October 16, 1926

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Chapters:

• 00:00: Michaelmas and the Feast of the Archangels
• 01:43: Oxford's Michaelmas term and the darkening of the year
• 05:17: St. Michael through the centuries
• 08:19: Leo XIII and the Prayer to St. Michael
• 13:38: The 1884 vision: a legend without a source
• 16:42: "To St. Michael in Time of Peace" (1929)
• 21:23: St. Michael at the foot of the Cross
• 25:56: Why invoke St. Michael in time of peace
• 31:30: Why the archangels belong together
• 34:14: Michael, Gabriel, and the Sacred Heart
• 37:09: Humility, Tobit, and the Annunciation
• 40:18: Michaelmas in Tolkien

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

Episode art image credit: "St-Michel-Mont-Mercure, Vendée", original photo by Pom', 26 July 2023; on Flickr; CC BY-SA 2.0