Where I Got My Saint Benedict Medal 

About The Jubilee Medal of St. Benedict

Origin and Explanation of the Medal

The Letters on the Other Side of the Medal 

 
It was Mary who first called me to the Church and Jesus who called me back in early 2020. One of the first things I did after returning to the faith, was to look for a statue of the Blessed Mother to replace the two I had given away.  

I bought my first replacement Mary statue on eBay and was excited to have found an exact replica of the old chalkware statue I had given up.

Unfortunately, when the statue arrived the beautiful face of Our Lady was completely smashed!  At first I was upset, and even started to wonder if this was some kind of sign that coming back to the Church was a mistake.  But the more I thought about, the more determined I felt to continue in the Faith.

I decided to repair the statue.

It was tedious, painstaking work, but as I reconstructed the statue my attention was drawn the snake that Mary was standing on.  I knew that the snake represented Satan. 

I thought about the many negative influence in my life - influences that included my fear of snakes and the presence of many garter snakes in our new year. And I started to feel that somehow Mary might help me to face that fear.  I wasn't sure how that would happen exactly but I was willing to believe that it was possible.

Enter St. Kateri 

A little later that year, a DNA test confirmed that I had a distant American Indian ancestor.  While I have no direct connection to the indigenous culture, I've always been interested in Indian spirituality.  Now  I began to learn a bit more. As I did, I started think about what I was learning had to say about my lifestyle and my relationship to the land.

At that point, I was spending most of my time inside.  I got very little exercise and my diet was terrible.  My participation in the family vegetable garden was minimal and I had let my own medicine wheel herb garden go. I felt bad about that but the worse the garden got, the harder it seemed to turn it around. 

Then I found out about the St. Kateri Conservation Center.   According to the website, anyone could transform a yard, garden, school, farm, or parish into a Saint Kateri habitat.

Even people, I thought, who live on busy streets and are afraid of snakes - or maybe even those people especially.

Where I'm at Right Now

Right now, I'm busy working with my son in our backyard. We haven't got to the medicine wheel garden yet but we are making progress with we are working hard on getting our three raised beds ready for planting.

The Mary Garden is still in the planning stages and I am still snake phobic but I wanted to write this post to hold myself accountable.

The image above is of medicine wheel garden not long after we put it in.  It is badly overgrown now and needs a lot of work.  But I hope to posting on my progress very soon!

I also want to learn more about the medicine wheel and related aspects of American Indian spirituality.

About the Medicine Wheel

The Medicine Wheel, sometimes known as the Sacred Hoop, has been used by generations of various Native American tribes for health and healing. It embodies the Four Directions, as well as Father Sky, Mother Earth, and Spirit Tree—all of which symbolize dimensions of health and the cycles of life.

The Medicine Wheel can take many different forms. It can be an artwork such as artifact or painting, or it can be a physical construction on the land. Hundreds or even thousands of Medicine Wheels have been built on Native lands in North America over the last several centuries.

Movement in the Medicine Wheel and in Native American ceremonies is circular, and typically in a clockwise, or “sun-wise” direction. This helps to align with the forces of Nature, such as gravity and the rising and setting of the Sun. - Excerpted from "Medicine Ways" on the Native Voices Website

When I read about the medicine wheel garden and what it means, I can why I let mine go and why I must return to it.

____________

My journey back to the Church was a long one.  You can read about some of it in my post The Long Way Home.   

About This Image 

The image above is a colorized version of "Saint Michael" by Italian master Guido Reni (1575–1642).  This image is featured on the St. Michael printable prayer card available in my Etsy shop, Catholic Book And Card.  For the card, I tinted the original paint to the vivid blue associated with Saint Michael (as shown above).

Saint Michael in the Bible

Saint Michael, is one of three archangels the Bible mentions by name (the others being Saints Raphael and  Gabriel). Saint Michael is mentioned four times - twice in the Old Testament, and two more times in the new.  

The first reference is in the Book of Daniel. In Chapter 10 St. Michael comes to comfort Daniel after he has had a vision, and promises to be his helper in all things. In Daniel 12, St. Michael is called "the great prince who standeth for the children of Thy people."

In these references St. Michael is shown to support Israel during the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity. In writing about St. Michael Daniel, strove to show his people that God had not forgotten them, and remind them that even in bondage they had a royal champion. In St. Jude 9, we are told that Michael disputed with the devil over the body of Moses - an episode not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.

In the Revelation (Chapter 12) we find the most dramatic reference to St. Michael. Here St. John recounts the great battle in Heaven, when the wicked angels under Lucifer revolt against God. In this passage, Michael, leading the faithful angels, defeats the hosts of evil and drives them out. 

Because of this victory, St. Michael is revered in Catholic tradition and liturgy as the protector of the Church. 

Michael's battle against the rebel angels has been painted by many artists (one such painting serves as the main banner of this blog). It has been written about various writers, as well, including the poet Milton in book 6 of Paradise.  

In the Eastern Church, St. Michael is placed over all the angels, as prince of the Seraphim. And, in Asia Minor, many curative springs were dedicated to him.

St. Michael is a powerful figure in spiritual warfare. He is considered to be the special patron of the sick, police officers, the military, the state of Israel and the Catholic Church.  St. Michael's emblems are a banner, a sword, a dragon, and scales. 

St. Michael's name is a variation of Micah, which asks (in Hebrew), "Who is like God?"  It is the same question posed by Moses in Exodus 15:1-11. The passage, also called the Song of the Sea, is thought to be a very old section of Scripture that can still be heard today in the Mi Kamocha of Jewish worship:

Who is like You among the gods, Adonai? Who is like you? Glorious in holiness, awesome in praises...

About Michaelmas

Today September 29th is St. Michael’s feast day. During the middle ages this day - known as Michaelmas - was a holy day of obligation.  

In 1969, the Novus Ordo Calendar added combined the feasts of St. Gabriel and St. Raphael with St. Michael's and discontinued the individual feasts of the archangels. Traditional Latin Mass congregations using the pre 1962 liturgical calendar keep the original dates for all three feasts.  So, for me, this is St. Michael's day alone.

The SSPX (Society of St. Pius the X) devotional newsletter suggests that today is a good day to read the proper of the Mass of St. Michael, as found in the traditional missal.  The newsletter also encourages us to "pray to St. Michael when temptations arise, especially those related to abuses of the internet, radio, and telephone." 

The St. Michael Prayer

The Saint Michael Prayer is an amazing prayer for spiritual warfare.  The abridged version (below) is short and easy to memorize and it can be said anytime you are feeling in need of spiritual protection.  The prayer was written in Oct. 1, 1884 by Pope Leo XIII following a disturbing mystical experience at Mass.

The Pope had just finished celebrating Mass when he suddenly stood transfixed in front of the altar as if in a trance, his face drained of color. Once recovered, he went to his office and composed a prayer to St. Michael. He told his staff the prayer should be offered throughout the Church.

Pope Leo told others that he had heard two voices which he believed to voices of Our Lord and of Satan. The Pope heard Satan boast that he could destroy the Church in 75 or 100 years, if given the opportunity. Then he heard Our Lord give Satan permission to make the attempt.

The prayer was recited after Low Mass in the Catholic Church from 1886 until it was discontinued in 1964. Thirty years later, in his Regina Coeli address, Pope John Paul II said, “Although the prayer is no longer recited at the end of Mass, I ask every one not to forget it and to recite it to obtain help in the battle against the forces of darkness and against the spirit of the world.”

I'm happy to say that, at the SSPX Chapel I attend, the priest leads the faithful in the prayer to St. Michael after each and every Mass!

Saint 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, O Prince of the Heavenly Host - by the power of God - cast into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits, who roam about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. 

To purchase the St. Michael printable prayer card (75¢ US) please check out my Etsy listing here.