A day after voting between two saints with elegant names, we're back to more mundane monikers. Anna and Michael. There is nothing mundane about these two contestants, however, as prophet faces archangel in a matchup you will only find here at Lent Madness. Is it fair to put an angel in the bracket against a mere mortal? We're not sure. But as the familiar expression goes, "All's fair in love and Lent Madness."
Speaking of those elegantly named saints, Eglantyne Jebb easily defeated Seraphim of Sarov 73% to 27% to advance to the Saintly Sixteen.
Today is the last battle of a full week of saintly thrills and spills. We'll see everyone bright and early on Monday morning with an exciting agricultural matchup between Isidore the Farmer and Phocus the Gardener. TGIL, everybody! (Thank God It's Lent).
Anna the Prophet
Like many women in the Bible, Anna doesn’t have a lot of scriptural context to sketch a complete biography. However, the simple fact that Anna is given a name and title speaks to the importance of this woman. Known as Anna the Prophet, she is recognized as the widow who was with Simeon in the temple when Jesus was presented by Mary and Joseph shortly after his birth.
Saint Luke (2:36–38) tells us: “There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
As a Jewish prophet, Anna led a life of devotion to God through daily prayer, worship, and work at the temple. Anna is honored as a saint for her recognition of Christ as the Messiah during his presentation in the temple. Both Simeon and Anna were transformed by their encounter with Jesus, which led to the creation of the Song of Simeon that we sing to this day. Also known as the Nunc Dimittis, the Song of Simeon is a traditional canticle often used in Compline and Evensong.
Although we don’t know much about the details of her life, Anna’s presence and witness offer several important lessons. She teaches us about the importance of prayer and fasting to prepare for the coming of our Lord. She models for us the importance of patience, since much of a faithful life is spent waiting. Her diligence assures us that the practices of prayer, fasting, preparation, and patience will give us a reward far greater than anything we can imagine. Anna teaches us that our faithful practices allow us to participate in the coming of Christ.
Anna’s feast day is celebrated on February 3.
Collect for Anna the Prophet
Almighty and life-giving God, we give thanks for the witness of Anna the Prophet who recognized our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ during his presentation in the temple. We give thanks, O Lord, for the teachings of Anna that show us the path to glory can be found through prayer, fasting, preparation, and patience; in Christ’s name. Amen.
Michael the Archangel
The word angel means messenger from God. Archangels are considered the chief angels in the hierarchy of angels, although most of this hierarchy is human construct. The full name of Michael translates to “Who is like God?”—an obviously rhetorical question. Michael is mentioned in the holy texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Michael is described in the Bible as a helper and defender of God’s holy people, the one who cares for the dead (Michael even argues with the devil over Moses’ body in the book of Jude). Most notably, Michael is portrayed as fighting and defeating the dragon in the Book of Revelation. Michael is frequently depicted as a warrior angel, holding a sword and a shield and standing astride a defeated and subdued dragon.
While Michael has been invoked in prayer through the centuries as the defender and protector of the people of God, the warrior image is a more modern concept. In the early centuries of Christianity, the faithful venerated Michael as a defender and protector, not through violence and war but through healing. Churches, shrines, and holy places dedicated to Michael began appearing in the fourth century as places of healing. Many of these holy places were built around hot springs in Greece and Asia. Michael’s protection extended from life to death, as Michael guarded the souls of the dead against evil and guided them to God as they came into the kingdom of heaven.
Only as Christianity became associated with political and military might did the image of Michael shift to an archangel clad in armor and leading armies in the name of Christ. By the Middle Ages, Michael and George became the patron saints of chivalry, a code of conduct associated with knighthood and military service.
Michael is given credit for redirecting a river to save a church; standing with a sword over the tomb of Hadrian, thus protecting Rome from a devastating plague under the papacy of Gregory the Great; and appearing to the Bishop of Avranches in 708 with directions to build a church on the rocky islet now known as Mont Saint-Michel in France. Michael is also considered to be the domesticator of horses; legend holds that Michael taught Saint Florus and Saint Laurus to listen to the language of horses so they could be helpers to humanity.
Collect for Michael the Archangel
Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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303 comments on “Anna the Prophet vs. Michael the Archangel”
Sorry, golden halos are not required for winged angels. Even though they shrink at The Glory when entering into the sacred light, they've got wings!
Anna, on the other hand, is a human. Whether she truly lived in reality, apart from Luke's fanciful tale of birth and childhood, we may never know. But we are told of her witness and revelation. And for me, that's what this contest is all about.
Who among those we are presented with did the most to share the good news? Well, Anna the blabbermouth prophetess did her job, nobly.
Anna for the win!
I have lots of police officers and members of the military in my family, so I voted for Michael.
Michael, Patron Saint of Police Officers. Law Enforcement Officers in our country need extra help from up above during these turbulent times.
Anna hers my vote today. She’s a real witness and dedicated to her faith.
I have a daughter named Anne, so there's that. But I mainly voted for Anna because older women become invisible in past and current history. At a great age, her wisdom led herto see what others could not.
I voted for Michael because I have always prayed to him since I was a small child.
I voted for Anna because she reminds me of the vows I made when I became a Daughter of the King.
Tough vote for me today. Anna's witness was important, and I love the humility of her devotion. On the other hand Michael is such a mighty angel.
I was born on St. Michael's day, so I will let that be thumb on the scale
I love Mont-saint-Michel, but Anna gets my vote!
Michael is more than a saint of goodly deeds, he is one of God’s chosen! Who are we that we should not continue to acknowledge that fact especially during lent just as Anna recognized Christ at the temple?
Nora Ephratah saw Michael as John Travolta
And Andrew Greeley sees him as Michael Jordan. Great images. My vote is for the Archangel.
You would think I would feel compelled to vote for Anna. Additionally, the tribe of Asher (which means Happy) was greatly blessed by Jacob and Moses. There has to be a reason the gospel writer would include that information in the story. She is one of the few transitional prophets between the Old and New Testaments and the only female so named a prophet in the New Testament.
However, it's Friday, and the fact that Michael taught the first horse whisperers cinched it for me today. I went with Michael (besides he looks like John Travolta and smells like fresh baked cookies). Anna really deserves to win this round though.
Michael. Have you been to Mont Saint Michel? ..and a horse whisperer.
I insisted that the Gospel reading for my mother's funeral - Simeon- include the rest of the story - Anna. She was truly the inspiration for my mother's active participation in her church from before I was born until she ended up in a nursing facility in her late 80's. Had to vote for Anna.
something about having an angel in this contest doesn't sit right with me. I want to hear about ordinary, fallible humans, rising above or doing good works or witnessing for Christ. an angel has an unfair head start. Anna for me!
At age 80, I need all the role models I can find! So I vote for Anna, as I spend my life in prayer and contemplation because doors are not open for me to exercise my other callings. I vote for Anna, and hope to emulate her.
Anna the Prophet, because I believe that being an archangel gives one a significant edge. All honor to Michael, however, and thanksgiving for his care of Pasquale in the comic strip "Rose is Rose." It's great fun to see Pasquale's ordinarily cherubic guardian angel morph into Michael when Pasquale is about to get himself into trouble. John Travolta was a very appealing Michael in the movie by the same name. How can anyone not like an archangel who "smells like cookies"?
if I don’t get a very strong feeling towards one or the other in the vote, my default is for the woman!
Hahaha! Oh, SEC. Sorry, I just gotta go with the human on this one, so Anna it is. But I see it's a close race! This will be interesting.
Love reading the comments. All Y'all rock in my estimation.
Every saint bears witness to some aspect of the Divine. St. Michael reveals God's love in protecting, defending, and healing those who suffer from the conflicts in our broken world-- especially (for me) those enduring the horrors of tribal wars, terrorism, and genocide in too many countries. Today, Michael has my vote.
Going with the widow, as I am one. Certainly not as faithful as Anna, but I admire her for it.
Anna for me. There's no evidence of Micahel ever being human, and in this contest I"m species-ist.
I didn't hesitate in this vote at all. Michael as domesticator of horses is quite the Trojan hero. But Troy has been sung for ages and ages and will be sung for ages to come. And Michael is so well ensconsed in heaven, always already and forevermore standing in the presence of God with Gabriel and all the company of heaven, that he doesn't need my vote.
But Anna is the only woman identified as a prophet in the Bible, unless Miriam can also lay claim to that title. And aging women without men get such short shrift, receiving the crumbs of any society. Jesus tells us directly that God prefers the widow's mite. So I am voting for Anna. The "bio" stresses patience and faithfulness. What is impressive to me is that in her human mortality, Anna has not "grown old," so to speak; she is fresh and ready and practiced, through her spiritual disciplines, to receive the divine when it appears. She promptly perceives it, recognizes it, and acclaims it. Anna is a model of the true, human, spiritual warrior. Anna for me today.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old.
Yeats has been on my mind this week ever since I saw "Annihilation"!
Hard for me to justify including an archangel (or any angel for that matter) for consideration as a saint. To me, a saint is someone, who like Jesus, was born of flesh and lived as a human. Anna, who was a faithful Jewish prophet, recognized Jesus as the Christ. Truly, she is the saint here and has my vote.
Almost enough to make me regret voting the lunch ticket.
Googled a bit, and looks like the RC Church does not technically consider angels saints, though they certainly are worthy of being called sancta/holy. I think Michael and Gabriel kind of got grandfathered into the calendar of saints because they were already being invoked and getting churches named after them when the Church got more systematic about defining what constitutes a saint. I believe in angelic entities -- though I'm quite agnostic about their particulars -- but I don't think Michael, wherever and whatever he/she may be, has need of a halo made in China in the 21st-century. Anna the Prophet gets my vote.
For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.
Anna reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the Psalter.
You missed Huldah (who shares a name with one of my great grandmothers).
2 Kings 22:14-20
&
2 Chronicles 34:22-28
. . . Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tokhath, son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter) . . .
Wow, I've never heard of her! Thank you. I am afraid Kings and Chronicles are books that gather dust in my Biblical reading; I maneuver my literary camels well around them . . .
I would encourage you to give them a chance. Think of it as a Lenten discipline if that helps.
✔
"Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying." (Isaiah 6:2) In the Bible, "feet" is a common euphemism for genitals. The angels are covering their faces and genitals with their extra wings, out of modesty and reverence. And Milton assures us in Paradise Lost that angels have sex. Whether that is "gender," strictly speaking, is another issue. But the ecstasy angels experience seems like a bliss we might all have some capacity for imagining.
How did Milton know? Was he a prophet? I think angels exist in a different way than humans do, at least in this life. Angels don't procreate, so why would they need genitalia? Nevertheless, they participate in God's holiness, so they certainly experience ecstasy in some angelic way.
All poets are prophets. In Book 8 of Paradise Lost, Adam asks Raphael if angels make love, and Raphael assures him that they do, and it's terrific. Adam is very dry and Aristotelian. Raphael blushes and assures him that angel sex is the best sex of all. Raphael has also just enjoyed a hearty meal with Adam, and he ate with real hunger. So angels, while without corporeal bodies, still have senses and desires and know full love. (So heaven is going to be great! Don't everybody rush to get there before your time! Remember Anna: patience is the spice that makes it even better!)
[Adam]
Bear with me then, if lawful what I ask;
Love not the heav'nly Spirits, and how thir Love
Express they, by looks onely, or do they mix
Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch?
[Raphael]
To whom the Angel with a smile that glow'd
Celestial rosie red, Loves proper hue,
Answer'd. Let it suffice thee that thou know'st
Us happie, and without Love no happiness.
Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy'st
(And pure thou wert created) we enjoy
In eminence, and obstacle find none
Of membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs:
Easier then Air with Air, if Spirits embrace,
Total they mix, Union of Pure with Pure
Desiring; nor restrain'd conveyance need
As Flesh to mix with Flesh, or Soul with Soul.
Considering Milton's anti-Trinitarian opinions, I would not accept his opinions on the supposed sexual lives of angels.
Milton's putative Arianism sinks my sketchy knowledge of 17th-century wranglings over Calvinism into the murky depths. It's been ages since I read Areopagitica. But therein he writes: "as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image; but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life." He also therein writes, using very Pauline imagery: "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister'd vertue, unexercis'd & unbreath'd, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortall garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." So I think Milton values false doctrine as a challenge to the truth and as a foil to the truth, so that truth can prevail and shine the more brightly. And there is no one I would trust more than a poet to explain to me the sex lives of angels.
"And there is no one I would trust more than a poet to explain to me the sex lives of angels." Gems like these make it worthwhile to scroll back through the comments at the end of the day!
Miss Jan, you have picked one of my absolute all-time favorite psalms. Perfect.
Voted for Anna because I saw a recent production of an opera that had Anna as a character so this stood out for me. Also she is a woman that was given a name in the Bible. And, although I have always been fond of Michael, it occurred to me that I don't like the armor and warrior aspect and reading about him made me think of the crusades, not our brightest moment.
Hear, hear!
My husband's name is Michael, my 5th son's birthday is Sept. 29th. For decades Mike has tried to teach me about angels and archangels and I still don't believe a word of it. Grotesques, he says. I like grotesques and they're all over my cathedral (WDC). So are angels. They're in stained glass windows in nearly every church. Well, Episcopal churches--if they have anything more than color. I don't care if Michael wasn't a mortal or a saint. I just looked at tons of images of the Archangels. It's a wonder Christianity still is. I like Anna. I'm old too. Makes me want a few angels around. I'm going with Michael.
Definitely a tough call. I have much admiration for Anna, but have called on Michael to vanquish the powers of hell more than once in this lifetime, so Michael it is.
Patience, patience...
I have to vote for old women everywhere! Anna for me today.