In one sentence, Benedict is the shield and Michael is the sword, though I would call on neither one of them for general protection. As for George though, let's not go there. Absolutely not. He is an agent of the Demiurge, as far as I'm concerned. The thought of him makes me want to climb unto my roof and call for snow. In Catalonia Sant Jordi is celebrated, to be sure, and tacitly he is regarded as the patron saint of the whole country, though it is the dragon who is the real focus of the story, for the blood of the dragon, upon touching the earth, became the tears of Mary, the sacred rose, and to Her is the country given. To Her I would call for general protection, for none will gainsay her. Hers is beauty born of suffering. Hers is the renewal of spring, of creation out of chaos, as also symbolized by the ancient sárkány (dragons) of the Magyar who were not forces of evil but the unification of the fertility of the earth with the storms that gave it life, as the Cross of Lorraine on the crest of Hungary (my profile pic being a variation of it) denotes -- a country under the rulership of both heaven and earth.
I bring this up because the protective powers of the saints are not only functional but relational, so lineage and cosmology come into play. In other words you will work with Saint Michael differently if you are a traditional Catholic than if you are a Sophian Gnostic, for example. He remains, however, the Supreme Commander of the armies of light and thus the very definition of Spiritual Warfare against the powers of entropy. Call on him for direct intervention if you are under psychic, mental, physical, emotional or demiurgic attack (suffering egregious injustice in the world). Michael acts swiftly. If your boundaries are being violated; if you need clarity, strength, courage or facing something predatory he will come to your aid and protection, for he is the agency of order (like our admins here) boundaries and jurisdiction, divine or otherwise.
And but this does not necessarily make him an interminable bore, for even as Michael is Commander, so also is his twin brother Lucifer the Throne, and it is to him, as the angel of unconditional sovereignty, that I dedicate the Great Work. And this brings us to Benedict, patron saint of Monastics, of long and difficult journeys; of purification, of endurance, and of trials by fire. He is the one you call when you want to give up on yourself, your principles, your magick, or the train-wreck of your life. His medal is an exorcism. It is the exorcism of the bread -- the food that keeps you going and that keeps you here and that protects you through your covenant with life. Without that you are just whistling in the wind anyway.
