St. Michael and the Conference - Rector's Rambling for October 4, 2020

     

    

    Today we are celebrating the Solemnity of St. Michael the Archangel, a feast day that occurred back on September 29 (Tuesday).  It is a most important Feast Day and because of that it is fitting that it can be commemorated with an Octave – eight days of celebration.  And no matter what day of the week a feast occurs, eight days allow for a Sunday to occur during that period!

The photo above is one of the group shots for this past summer’s St. Michael’s Conference for Youth.  Of the four regional St. Mike’s (East, Southwest, Springfield, and Midwest) ours was the only one that met this year, and it was accomplished with all the COVID-19 precautions including social distancing, as you see pictured.

St. Michael was chosen as the patron for our youth/young adult conference when it morphed from the former Valley Forge Conference in the early 1970s because he is a warrior.  As we hear in the reading from The Book of Revelation, St. Michael, whose name means “one who is like unto God”, defeats the rebellious angels led by Satan.

So the St. Michael’s Conference is a boot camp for warriors for the Kingdom of God.  This warfare isn’t physical but spiritual – against principalities and powers that seek to deceive us and draw us away from the love of God.  We are training an army of the next generation of soldiers fighting against the snares and deceptions that the evil one uses, through the temptations of the world and the flesh.

Like military boot camp, there is lots of time of instruction with classes and lectures, and training which is done through the form of worship with Morning Prayer, Mass, Evening Prayer, Compline (nighttime prayer) and lots of other things in between.

Add to classes and worship a wonderful time of fellowship and games, and you have a winning combination to implant into the hearts of the Michaelites a love of Jesus and His Church.

Worship, Instruction, and Fellowship isn’t just for a week at St. Michael’s Conference for Youth, but a foundation for the Church at large, and I hope that all the people of St. John’s will adopt a similar rule of life!  Worship and pray more, learn more about Jesus in Scripture and Holy Reading, and spend time with others in the Church.

St. Michael, pray for us!