Angels and Archangels are a wonderful feature of the Anson Chapel at St Chrysostom’s Church. It could rightly be renamed the Angels Chapel. The angels are painted in the panelling, in the reredos, and are there abundantly in the stained glass windows – and we join them at Mass in worship!
A selection of Angels and Archangels in the panelling of the Anson Chapel, St Chrysostom’s
29th September is the Feast of St Michael and all Angels. For the feast here is a quotation from ‘The Lives of the Saints’ (1875) of that prolific and energetic Victorian priest Sabine Baring-Gould:
The angels are pure spirits created by God to love and serve him. According to Dionysius the Aeropagite, they are arranged in the following hierarchy; Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels.
The festival of S. Michael and All Angels opens to us a vision of Heaven inhabited by a vast multitude. All is order; all is harmony. Yet in this very order there is variety, and harmony implies diversity.
No existences, as they leave the hand of God, are identical. If God is the God of concord, God is the God of variety as well.
The Angelic host follows this rule. Each angel differs from his fellow, as each man differs from his fellow, as each beast or flower is various.
The Collect for the Feast of S. Michael and All Angels
Angel musicians in the Anson Chapel
Everlasting God,
you have ordained and constituted the ministries
of angels and mortals in a wonderful order:
grant that as your holy angels
always serve you in heaven,
so, at your command,
they may help and defend us on earth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
… and why not try our light hearted Angel quiz – click here.
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