The conjunction of #Michaelmas with the grim news that a million people have died of #Covid cannot help but stir memories of a previous experience of pandemic.
In the spring of 590, when Gregory I was elected pope, plague was raging in Rome. When he emerged from his consecration, he saw arrows raining down from the sky, as tho' fired from an invisible bow. For 3 days he prayed - & then the arrows stopped falling.
In time, the story came to be told that St Michael had been seen standing on the Mausoleum of Hadrian, holding up a blazing sword - & that then, accepting the prayers of Gregory & the Romans as they went in procession, he had sheathed the sword, & at once the plague had stopped.
That statue on the Mausoleum of Hadrian - or the Castel Sant'Angelo as it came to be known - is probably the most celebrated representation of Saint Michael there is.
Anyway, may he sheathe his sword again soon...
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