371 part ii: meditations for more solemn feasts FOR THE FEAST OF THE APPARITION OF ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL175 Before Holy Communion 1. “unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3) [DRB]. What does it mean, my soul, that the Teacher of Truth exhorts His disciples to become like little children? Is it because the heavenly door is narrow, hence only little children can enter by it? Indeed, it is so. If somebody shuts the keys inside a room with a very narrow window, he seeks a small child [f.117v] and asks him to get inside and open the door. Thus, only little children can enter the heavenly door, which the Savior Himself asserts to be narrow (cf. Mt 7:13-14; Lk 13:24). Therefore, O my soul! You should immediately shed obesity, if you have any, such as vainglory, boasting, and hubris, for the souls inflated by them are totally unable to enter either the small heavenly gate or the narrow way of perfection. At the same time, ask the heavenly Architect in the present Communion to shape you in a different form, and to make you so thin through the virtues of humility and obedience, that you might pass without difficulty through the narrow entrance of the royal celestial castle. 2. “as little children” (Mt 18:3). Consider that it is proper to little children to abound in sincere simplicity. They believe anyone, they trust everyone, they do not think evil about anybody nor wish evil to anybody; they are obedient to elders, they do not give scandal to anyone, they do not 175 Saint Michael the Archangel was venerated in the West “as the head of the heavenly armies and the patron of soldiers. This veneration may be traced to a popular cult arising from an alleged 5th- or 6th-century apparition of Michael during the distress caused by invading Goths (on the coast of southeastern Italy, Gargano or Monte Sant’Angelo; probable source of Mont-Saint-Michel tradition, Manche, France, A.D. 709)” (T.L. Fallon, NCE, vol. IX, p. 794 (s.v. Michael, Archangel)). The Church has been encouraged in the devotion to St. Michael the Archangel “by several apparitions of this glorious archangel. Among others, it is recorded that St. Michael, in a vision, admonished the Bishop of Siponto to build a church in his honor on Mount Gargano, near Manfredonia, in the kingdom of Naples” (BLS (s.v. May 8 —The Apparition of St. Michael, the Archangel)).
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