Prayer to Saint Michael

In the Leonine Prayers

In 1886, Pope Leo XIII added a Prayer to Saint Michael to the Leonine Prayers, which he had directed to be prayed after Low Mass two years earlier.

Variant English translations have "Holy Michael", "Saint Michael", "malice and snares", "may God rebuke him", "cast into Hell", "all evil spirits", "prowl through the world seeking the ruin", and other differences. The English translation that was used in Ireland is quoted in James Joyce's novel Ulysses.

The prayer's opening words are similar to the Alleluia verse for Saint Michael’s feasts on 8 May and 29 September in the Roman Missal of the time, which ran:

Sancte Michael, defende nos in proelio ut non pereamus in tremendo iudicio.

Saint Michael, defend us in battle that we might not perish at the dreadful judgment.

History

The 'Leonine Prayers' originated in 1884, when Pope Leo XIII ordered certain prayers to be said after Low Mass, in defense of the independence of the Holy See. God's help was sought for a satisfactory solution to the loss of the Pope's temporal sovereignty, which deprived him of the evident independence required for effective use of his spiritual authority. The prayer to St Michael described above was added to the Leonine Prayers in 1886.

The Pope's status as a temporal leader was resolved in 1929 by the creation of the State of Vatican City, and in the following year, Pope Pius XI ordered that the intention for which these prayers should from then on be offered was "to permit tranquility and freedom to profess the faith to be restored to the afflicted people of Russia".

The practice of reciting this and the other Leonine prayers after Mass was officially suppressed by the 26 September 1964 Instruction Inter Oecumenici which came into effect on 7 March 1965.

Removing the obligation to recite this powerful prayer (along with the three Hail Mary's, the Hail Holy Queen and the prayer for the Church) after Low Mass did not mean forbidding its use either privately or publicly in other circumstances; indeed, in his Regina Caeli Address on Sunday 24 April 1994, Pope John Paul II recommended its use, saying:

"May prayer strengthen us for the spiritual battle that the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of: 'Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might' (Ephesians 6:10). The Book of Revelation refers to this same battle, recalling before our eyes the image of St Michael the Archangel (cf. Revelation 12:7). Pope Leo XIII certainly had this picture in mind when, at the end of the last century, he brought in, throughout the Church, a special prayer to St Michael: 'Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil...' Although this prayer is no longer recited at the end of Mass, I ask everyone not to forget it and to recite it to obtain help in the battle against the forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world."

1890 original version

On 18 May 1890, twenty years after the capture of Rome had deprived the Pope of the last vestige of his temporal sovereignty, and the papal residence at the Quirinal Palace had been converted into that of the King of Italy, Pope Leo XIII granted indulgences to bishops and to priests lawfully authorized by their ordinaries who each day would devoutly recite a formula of exorcism against Satan and the rebel angels.

The formula of exorcism, which was then inserted into the Roman Ritual, contained within it a quite different prayer to Saint Michael, of which the following is an English translation:

This formula was not meant as a rite for exorcising a particular person but "for general use – to combat the power of the evil spirits over a community or locality".

The prayer to Saint Michael that was included in this general exorcism had in fact been published and indulgenced two years earlier, in 1888, two years after the insertion of the more familiar Prayer to Saint Michael into the Leonine Prayers.

1902 abbreviated version

In 1902, a year and a half before the death of Pope Leo XIII, a new edition of the Roman Ritual considerably shortened the formula as a whole and in particular the prayer to Saint Michael within it, making that prayer a sort of preface to the prayer of exorcism. The prayer was shorn of the preceding version's paragraphs 2-6 and of the phrase "in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of this world and of hell" in paragraph 7.

In his English version of the Roman Ritual, Philip T. Weller gives the following translation:

Anthony Cekada and Brian Kelly suggest that improved relations between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy, which from 1900 was under a new king, lay behind the 1902 excision of phrases such as "These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions", and "In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of the abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that, when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered." These phrases have been interpreted as referring to the confiscation of Church property by the government of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and to the occupation by the King of Italy of the Quirinal Palace, which had been the Pope's residence and seat of civil government.

In 1999, the Vatican issued a revised version of its Rite of Exorcism. The Latin text of the 1902 prayer to St Michael was retained, unedited, in Appendix I. The Latin text of the 1886 prayer is also included, in Appendix II.

Prayer of consecration

The Opus Sanctorum Angelorum presents the following prayer as an Act of Consecration to Saint Michael the Archangel:

Oh most noble Prince of the Angelic Hierarchies, valorous warrior of Almighty God and zealous lover of His glory, terror of the rebellious angels, and love and delight of all the just angels, my beloved Archangel Saint Michael, desiring to be numbered among your devoted servants, I, today offer and consecrate myself to you, and place myself, my family, and all I possess under your most powerful protection.

I entreat you not to look at how little, I, as your servant have to offer, being only a wretched sinner, but to gaze, rather, with favorable eye at the heartfelt affection with which this offering is made, and remember that if from this day onward I am under your patronage, you must during all my life assist me, and procure for me the pardon of my many grievous offenses, and sins, the grace to love with all my heart my God, my dear Savior Jesus, and my Sweet Mother Mary, and to obtain for me all the help necessary to arrive to my crown of glory.

Defend me always from my spiritual enemies, particularly in the last moments of my life.

Come then, oh Glorious Prince, and succor me in my last struggle, and with your powerful weapon cast far from me into the infernal abysses that prevaricator and proud angel that one day you prostrated in the celestial battle. Amen.

Stories about the origin of the prayer

An article in the Roman journal Ephemerides Liturgicae (V. LXIX, pages 54–60) in 1955 gave an account in Latin and Italian of how the Saint Michael prayer (in the Leonine Prayers) originated. Footnote nine of this account quotes an article in another Italian journal called La Settimana del Clero in 1947 by Domenico Pechenino, who worked at the Vatican during the time of Leo XIII, in which he said that after Leo had celebrated a Mass, he seemed to be staring at something, then went to his private office, with his attendants asking if he was well. Half an hour later he had written the Saint Michael prayer.

According to the same article in Ephemerides Liturgicae, Giovanni Nasalli Rocca Cardinal di Corneliano wrote in his Litteris Pastoralibus pro Quadragesima (Pastoral Letters for Lent) that according to Leo's private secretary, Rinaldo Angeli, Leo had seen a vision of demonic spirits who were congregating on the Eternal City (Rome); he wrote the Saint Michael prayer, and often said it, in response to the vision. Leo also personally wrote an exorcism prayer included in the Roman Ritual, and recommended that bishops and priests read these exorcisms often in their dioceses and parishes. He himself often recited them.

Several variants of this story are told. The first to appear in print was in a 1933 German Sunday newspaper article, which stated that, as a result of the vision, shortly after 1880 Leo ordered the prayer to Saint Michael to be recited. In reality, it was only in 1884 that the Pope instituted the Leonine Prayers, still at that time without the prayer to Saint Michael. A year later, a German writer, Fr. Bers, tried to trace the origin of the story and declared that, though the story was widespread, nowhere could he find a trace of proof. Sources close to the institution of the prayer in 1886, including an account of a conversation with Leo XIII about his decision, say nothing of the alleged vision. Bers concluded that the story was a later invention that was spreading like a virus. The story is also found in Carl Vogl's 1935 Begone Satan: A Soul-Stirring Account of Diabolical Possession in Iowa.

In a later version, the vision is said to have occurred not in 1880, but on 13 October 1884, the year in which the Leonine Prayers were instituted but without the Prayer to Saint Michael. And yet another date, 25 September 1888, two years after Pope Leo XIII had added the prayer to the Leonine Prayers, was given in a 1991 version.

Another reported version of the vision relates a detailed conversation between the voice of Satan, who said he would destroy the Church if given enough power and time, and the voice of God, who permits Satan to do what he will. According to William Saunders, writing in the Arlington Catholic Herald, Leo said that God permitted Satan to choose a single century in which to work his worst against the Church; he chose the 20th century, and God privately revealed the then-future events of the 20th century to Leo.