A new book, Saint Michael and the Holy Angels, by Father Eugene Soyer, brings to the fore a most peculiar account.
It’s in the translator’s preface and says:
“In the Basilica of Saint Gervis, in the northern French city of Avranches, is enshrined a most curious relic. It is the skull of Saint Aubert, the city’s early eighth-century bishop.
“Tradition tells us that the conspicuous hole in the skull’s upper-right side, large enough to insert a human thumb, is attributed to Saint Michael the Archangel, who, in order to literally impress upon the bishop’s mind an unheeded command he had given him in two previous apparitions, physically poked him in his head.
“A seventeenth-century manuscript, written by the relic’s former Benedictine custodians and preserved in the National Library of France, describes the holy artifact this way:
“‘The head of the same Saint Aubert, on which can be seen a hole the width of a finger, which he received by Divine permission the third time that the most glorious Archangel Saint Michael appeared to him, commanding him on behalf of God to build a church in his name on this mount of Tombe; and what is quite remarkable is that he lived another fifteen years, without his sacred wound causing him any trouble.'”
What a deep, rich, endlessly fascinating faith Catholicism is. Who heard of this!
“After this third apparition had left an enduring sign on Saint Aubert’s very person,” continues the preface, “the holy bishop did in fact, with urgency, have a shrine to Saint Michael built on Mount Tombe as commanded. Over the centuries, this island shrine’s physical appearance evolved into the much grander and more glorious landmark known today, the world over, as Mont Saint-Michel”!
Though restricted for use (as a prison) during the calamitous and blasphemous French Revolution, the shrine’s reopening soon after, in the midst of rapidly dissipating Christianity, was an invitation for all faithful Christians to rally under the banner of the great archangel, confidently imploring him for grace and protection. Faith returned!
How great it is to see the prayer to Michael returning in many parishes in this time of similar darkness and exciting challenge for those who invoke his guidance and protection.
[resources: St. Michael and the Holy Angels, online mini-retreat this Saturday!]
