Devotion to the nine choirs of holy angels

"When we see storms gathering either in the Church or in the State, combinations to resist those who are working for the glory of God, extraordinary conspiracies to defeat some great good which is being planned in dioceses, towns, country-districts, and provinces-then it is that we ought to perform frequent devotions in honour of these Powers of Heaven, that they may overturn and destroy all the might and miserable plottings of hell." Such combinations and extraordinary conspiracies we now see forming around and against the Church in almost every country of Europe, fostered and even avowedly organised by irreligious and infidel governments-machinations so cunningly contrived and so unrelentingly pursued, that we may well believe that they can only have their origin in Satanic hate and malice. Against these "plottings of hell" God has given to His Church the protection of His holy angels, incomparable in their love and pity for men and their zeal for the Divine interests. Mighty, therefore, as our adversaries are, and seemingly irresistible in their fury, we may by the aid of these glorious spirits baffle all their wicked counsels, and scatter their forces like chaff before the wind.