In the Catholic Church there are many reminders of the reality of angels: at the beginning of Mass we ask the angels to pray for us; we cry out with all the host of angels as we acclaim the Sanctus, and in the Bible, angels get a mention around 300 times. But in the month of September, we get one additional reminder: Michaelmas, the feast of the archangels Ss Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.
However, in the natural sciences there are few, if any, reminders that angels exist, and it is likely that the vast majority of scientists would say that angels have no place in our understanding of physical reality. But this has not always been the case. According to Aristotle, the goal of science is to identify the principles and causes of knowable objects, and back in medieval times, there was much speculation about whether the angels mentioned in the Bible might be counted among the principles and causes of the knowable objects around us.
