This morning I went to an early Mass at a Church with which I was previously unfamiliar. It was held in a small chapel. Very nice. But at the end, there were several prayers with which I was unfamiliar. The one that stood out to me is this one:
Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel:
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host –
by the Divine Power of God –
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.Amen.
I sort of like it, and I sort of am cowed by the intensity of the thing. But It got my attention and got me to look up Michael, who I sort of remember, sort of. Here’s more information on him on wikipedia: Michael (archangel) which says:
Michael is one of the principal angels in Abrahamic tradition; his name was said to have been the war-cry of the angels in the battle fought in heaven against Satan and his followers.
It also says:
The Catholic Church honors Michael with four main titles or offices. He is the Christian angel of death, carrying the souls of all the deceased to heaven, where they are weighed in his perfectly balanced scales (hence Michael is often depicted holding scales). At the hour of death, Michael descends and gives each soul the chance to redeem itself before passing, thus consternating the devil and his minions. Michael is the special patron of the Chosen People in the Old Testament and is guardian of the Church; it was thus not unusual for the angel to be revered by the military orders of knights during the Middle Ages. Last, he is the supreme enemy of Satan and the fallen angels.
This stuff fascinates me.
I suppose in some ways we all do battle. What do you do battle with?
four comments so far...
This prayer was said after mass at the foot of the altar. I heard that Pope Leo the X111 had a vision during mass of a terrific battle between st. michael and satan. He then called everyone to say this prayer he was the author. I was looking this up because I didn’t know where I heard it and saw that Pope Leo was the author. Pope John Paulxx111 also said we should continue to pray this prayer as Pope Leo visualized the battle noted in the apocolypse. It is very needed in our time. I also heard along with that that there was to be 100years of fierce battle from the time of Pope Leo.
how do i get my churches to re-instate the alter railing and the prayer for the souls in purgatory and yhe st. michael the archangel prayer.
Hello Deborah — you should talk to your Parish Priest. Though, I believe altar railings are harder to add.
It is a fact that Pope Leo X111 had an apparition of Christ in debate with satan and the upshot was that Christ agreed that satan should have 100 years in order to destroy Christ’s Church..Leo X111 fainted – and on recovering composed a longer version of the St Michael’s prayer we don’t know when this was supposed to start but should it have been close to that time – 1886 then it would have expired some 22 years ago – meanwhile we are still in the battle – my guess is it started when Paul V1 finally admitted that ” The smoke of satan has entered the sanctuary’ – this was 36 years ago this coming Sunday June 29th – feast ot Sts peter and Paul – so ways to go yet !