This image is based off the St Michael prayer. Many paintings you see him depicted in the epic battle in the sky, which is good and and true and needed, but this image is a reflection on what happens when we, the church, say the prayer. The girl represents the church, as Bride, in a moment of temptation and need and how she turns to prayer.
“It is true that “the powers of death shall not prevail”, as the Lord assured (Mt 16:18), but this does not mean that we are exempt from trials and battles against the snares of the evil one. In this struggle the Archangel Michael stands alongside the Church to defend her against all the iniquities of the age, to help believers to resist the devil, who “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).”
This battle against the devil which characterizes the Archangel Michael is still going on, because the devil is still alive and at work in the world. In fact, the evil that is in it, the disorder we see in society, the infidelity of man, the interior fragmentation of which he is a victim, are not merely the consequences of original sin, but also the effect of the dark and infesting activity of Satan, of this saboteur of man’s moral equilibrium.”
– St John Paul II
Capato, Kate. The Defender. 2017.
Oil on Canvas. 40″ X 60″.
Available for USD $13,500.
