Saint Michael is a contented figure. What does this mean? It means he is always ready to serve, humbly recognizes God's greatness, and constantly fights for God's glory. The Archangel does not pretend to be recognized and praised for serving God faithfully and unceasingly.
Lucifer's drama began when he disagreed with God's judgments. His rebellious: "non serviam" lead to contradicting his own vocation. Humanity closes its' heart because what it wants for itself is to be God and seeks its' own glory because in its' heart lies jealousy, constant anxiety, strife and envy.
Saint Michael invites us wholeheartedly to accept our vocation, to be God's loving children. We will notice this is happening when we begin to serve God with joy, not expecting to be served, when we begin to admire God's great deeds instead of seeking constantly to be admired.
Humility means to know and love many talents God has given us and begin to use them. Czeslaw Milosz, a Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner, in one of his poems wrote: "Wake up man, whenever you are and act in such a way that people looking at you be able to admire God."
We can say that the greatest desire of our Patron is to awaken in us God's creation, that image which would reflect God's glory and glamour. Indeed our life can be either an epiphany or manifestation of God or it can be a poor spiritual festival, miserable movie production, more or less empty chattering.
A Christian, in order to be an image of God's revelation, does not have to make loud celebrations for God. He/she does not even need to verbalize his/her Christianity with words. Something more convincing, of course, is day to day life and living out one's own vocation. Meister Eckhart said: "People should not reflect too much on what they need to do but rather who they need to be." If people were to improve on themselves even just a little, their deeds would speak for themselves.
Perhaps a good lesson could be the following statement of a young man being honest with himself. He says: In my youth with my burning love for God I made a resolution to convert the entire world. However right away I realized my ambitions were too high. Therefore I decided to convert people from my home town. For the longest time, I tried and tried without luck. Again I realized that this goal was too ambitious so I began with those people with whom I lived at home. However, even so, I accomplished very little. Finally I realized I have to convert myself and serve God in spirit and truth.
Fr. Joseph Dabrowski, CSMA