Happy St. Michael’s Day! What, you’ve never heard of it? Sept. 29, the day this newspaper is dated, is the feast of St. Michael — the feast of all the archangels, for that matter. But St. Michael, prince of the angels, is my patron, so I’m going to celebrate with a cupcake or something. Actually, a cupcake seems a little weak for St. Michael. He is mentioned in the Book of Daniel as the patron angel of Israel, protecting God’s people. He takes on a greater role in the Book of Revelation, where — portrayed as a dragon — he defeats Satan in the war for heaven. Because of that story, St. Michael is most often seen with a sword, vanquishing a serpent. No wonder, then, that he is the patron saint of police officers, paramedics and the military. But Michael also is the patron of the sick and suffering, and, after an eighth-century apparition at Mont St. Michel on the coast of Normandy, a patron saint of mariners, who seem like they must be a pretty religious bunch given the number of patrons they claim. If there are no atheists in foxholes, it appears they are pretty scarce on the high seas as well. Once upon a time, St. Michael’s feast day, or “Michaelmas,” was widely observed, at least in the British Isles, as the quarter-day that marked the coming of autumn, the beginning of court and university terms and the end of the harvest. Perhaps, as the nights began to lengthen, it was a good time to pray for protection from evil spirits. In Hebrew, the name Michael means, “Who is like God?” (with a question mark, not a period), and he is among the heavenly beings honored by Muslims and Jews as well as Christians. Not a bad namesake, that. I say this because, while I have always liked my name, I didn’t always appreciate it as much as I do now. I was born in 1968, a year after the Beatles’ “Michelle” won the Grammy for Song of the Year, and there were five girls in my high school class of about 130 who were named Michelle or Michele. As a child, I (and all the other Michelles I knew) grew tired of having people we had just been introduced to singing that song to us. So what do I name my oldest daughter? Caroline, dooming her to endless serenades of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” I’m sorry. But I digress. St. Michael, I think, doesn’t digress from the matter at hand very much. It takes a certain focus, almost single-mindedness, to be the defender of God’s people, to fight and vanquish the Evil One. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.