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The end of September brings the Christian feast of Michaelmas, when the Church celebrates that mighty army of benign beings who worship round the throne of God and support the faithful on their earthly pilgrimage. The Creed describes God as the ‘maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible’, and I take that to include angels. The orthodox Church describes angels as ‘bodiless powers’. They are not physical in the way that we are. Chief among them is Michael the Archangel, the warrior who drove the devil out of heaven; Raphael, the Archangel of healing, and Gabriel the messenger, who brought news of Christ’s coming to the Virgin Mary.

I’ve always liked the idea of angels because they suggest that God’s creation is more complex and more connected than we might otherwise think. It isn’t just me and God, or us and God. There’s much more going on and I am not surprised that more people claim to believe in angels than those who claim to believe in God.

Driving through the autumn countryside last week I heard a fascinating programme about black holes, those tears in the fabric of the universe where the laws of physics break down and matter is crunched into nothingness. Episodes of Dr Who have built on the idea that black holes might be ‘wormholes’ providing instant passages into other parts of the universe, which is fine, except that it you fell into one you would be unlikely to return. I personally believe that the back of my washing machine connects to a black hole which is why I have so many missing socks.

The film Interstellar, which has become something of a cult movie in recent years, built on the idea that black holes might enable time travel and that a perilous journey through space time, supported by future beings, could ensure human survival. For me, angels are protective, hinting that we are not as alone as we might think in this vast universe. The science tells us that everything ultimately belongs together, from galaxies, to neurons in the human brain, to subatomic particles. Some would go further insisting that consciousness, the awareness that we exist, is not an accident or an anomaly, but a feature of the whole. And though it is possible to dismiss this instinct the vast majority of human kind have always responded to the mystery of the world with awe and wonder, exulting in the abundance of nature, the crops and fruits and seeds, the golden trees, the stars and the angels. At Michaelmas it makes sense to me to believe that this universe of ours is on our side.

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