Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel

Quick facts

Who is Saint Michael the Archangel?

Saint Michael the Archangel is one of three angels named in Sacred Scripture, along with Gabriel and Raphael, and the only one whom the New Testament explicitly calls an archangel. The name Michael is Hebrew for "Who is like God?", a rhetorical question whose answer is no one, spoken traditionally as a cry of defiance against the pride that once corrupted Lucifer. In Catholic tradition, Saint Michael is understood as the leader of God's heavenly armies and the defender of the Church against the powers of darkness.

Three books of Scripture name him directly. In the book of Daniel, he is called "one of the chief princes" and "the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people" (Daniel 10:13 and 12:1). In the letter of Jude, he is described as disputing with Satan over the body of Moses (Jude 1:9). And in the book of Revelation, Michael is pictured at the head of the angels of heaven, fighting the dragon who once deceived the world and casting him down (Revelation 12:7-9).

These passages are the biblical foundation of Catholic devotion to Saint Michael. The Church asks his intercession for protection, for strength in spiritual combat, and on behalf of those who face evil in any form, whether spiritual, physical, or moral. His patronage extends to soldiers, police officers, paramedics, and the sick, and to the Catholic Church as a whole.

The history of the prayer

The Prayer to Saint Michael as Catholics know it today was composed by Pope Leo XIII in 1886. According to the account passed down through Vatican tradition, Leo XIII was leaving Mass one morning when he experienced what those who witnessed it described as a kind of sudden collapse, followed by a long period of prayer in his private chapel. When he rose, he went immediately to his writing desk and composed what is now called the Prayer to Saint Michael.

Some versions of the story describe Leo XIII hearing, in a mystical vision, a conversation between God and Satan in which Satan was granted the power to test the Church more severely than at any time in history. Whether this vision story is historically verified or a later tradition is a matter for scholars. What is documented beyond dispute is that Leo XIII composed the prayer that year, ordered it to be recited after every Low Mass, and that it remained part of the Leonine Prayers at the close of Mass for nearly eighty years.

The prayer was removed from the Mass in 1965 as part of the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council, alongside the other Leonine Prayers. For several decades it quietly disappeared from ordinary Catholic practice, surviving mainly in traditional Catholic communities that continued to use the older Missal and in private family devotions.

In 1994, Pope John Paul II publicly called for the Prayer to Saint Michael to return to the daily life of the Church. In an Angelus address that year, he urged Catholics not to forget the prayer and to recall the context in which Leo XIII had composed it. Since then, the prayer has experienced a quiet revival. Many parishes now include it at the end of daily Mass or after other liturgical services. Catholic families pray it together. It has become, in a sense, the prayer Catholics return to when they sense that prayer for protection is needed.

I urge everyone not to forget this prayer, to recite it to obtain help in the battle against the forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world. Pope John Paul II, Regina Caeli, April 24, 1994

How to pray the Saint Michael Prayer

A simple four-step practice. It takes under two minutes and can be prayed alone, with family, after Mass, in the car, before confession, or at any other moment when you sense a need for protection.

1. Begin with the Sign of the Cross

   Make the Sign of the Cross slowly. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

2. Pray the short form of the Prayer to Saint Michael

   Pray the prayer in full, unhurried. The text is above. Let the words be whole words, not a formula rushed through.

3. Name one specific intention silently

   Before closing, name silently in your heart one person or situation that needs Saint Michael's intercession. A family member in trouble. A priest under attack. Your own soul in a moment of temptation. Add that name at the words "defend us in battle."

4. Close with the Sign of the Cross

   Make the Sign of the Cross again to close. The prayer is complete. It does not need to be longer.

When to pray the Saint Michael Prayer

There is no rule, but there are moments when Catholics have long turned to this prayer in particular:

• After Mass. The oldest use of the prayer. If your parish has restored it to daily or Sunday Mass, pray it aloud with the community. If not, pray it silently after the dismissal.
• As part of your morning offering. Pair the Prayer to Saint Michael with your daily morning offering so that the day begins with both an offering to God and a request for protection.
• Before confession. Many Catholics pray it as they enter the confessional or while they prepare their examination of conscience, asking Saint Michael's intercession against the temptations that have brought them there.
• During temptation itself. When a specific temptation is sharp and immediate, the prayer is short enough to pray silently in the moment. Catholics have relied on it as a spiritual emergency prayer for more than a century.
• On behalf of someone in spiritual battle. Family members who have wandered from the faith. Priests under attack. The grieving, the tempted, the ill. Name them silently at the words "defend us in battle."
• On the feast of Saint Michael (Michaelmas, September 29). The prayer belongs to the feast as naturally as bread to the Eucharist. On Michaelmas, pray it with your household.
• During Saint Michael's Lent (August 15 to September 29). The traditional forty-day fast leading up to Michaelmas, observed with added prayer, fasting, and works of mercy. The Prayer to Saint Michael is the obvious daily prayer of the season.

The longer exorcism form

Pope Leo XIII also composed a longer version of the prayer, sometimes called the Leonine Exorcism or the Exorcism Against Satan and the Apostate Angels. This longer form contains additional invocations, denunciations of Satan, and petitions for the Church. It is more often associated with priestly ministry than with lay devotion.

The short form (the one above, on this page) is what Pope Leo XIII placed in the Leonine Prayers for the end of Low Mass, and it is what the Church has always intended as the lay prayer. Laypeople can pray the longer form as a private devotion, but it is not used as a ritual exorcism outside of the appropriate priestly ministry. For nearly every person praying this prayer, the short form is the one to keep.

Saint Michael and Saint Thérèse: two ways of spiritual warfare

There is a thread in Catholic tradition that sees the spiritual life as a war, and the great Catholic saints as two different kinds of soldiers in it. Saint Michael, in the images the Church has loved for a thousand years, is the warrior with the sword and the armor and the wings, driving the enemy out of heaven. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, in her own writing, is the little soul who endures a long interior darkness without being able to see any light, and who offers that darkness as an act of love.

Both are legitimate. Both are needed. Saint Michael is the external and ecclesial defense: the Church as a whole, the priest at the altar, the family under attack from forces it can name. Saint Thérèse is the internal and personal defense: the single soul at prayer, the tempted conscience, the mother who cannot sleep because her child has walked away from the faith.

The Little Way, the spirituality that runs through this whole site and the app it exists to support, teaches that these two are one thing. When you pray the Saint Michael Prayer for a specific person you love, you are asking heaven to fight a battle in Saint Michael's register. When you live the Little Way and offer the hidden sacrifices of your ordinary day for the same person, you are fighting the same battle in Thérèse's register. The Church has always believed that both forms of warfare, the visible and the hidden, answer to the same Commander.

Thérèse wrote in her autobiography of an eighteen-month period near the end of her life during which the consolations of faith were taken from her. She did not escape the darkness by praying a single powerful prayer. She endured it, and offered the enduring, and trusted that her suffering in love was itself a weapon against whatever darkness was hiding God's face from her. That is the little warfare. It does not look like a sword. It looks like a young woman in a Carmelite cell, writing one more sentence for love.

The Prayer to Saint Michael is the external echo of that interior prayer. Pray both.

Related prayers and devotions

If the Saint Michael Prayer is part of your spiritual life, these related devotions are worth knowing:

• The Chaplet of Saint Michael. A longer devotion consisting of nine salutations (one for each choir of angels) followed by four Our Fathers. Revealed to the Portuguese Carmelite Antonia d'Astonac in the eighteenth century, approved by Pope Pius IX in 1851.
• The Prayer to Your Guardian Angel. The short classical prayer "Angel of God, my guardian dear..." A natural daily companion to the Saint Michael Prayer.
• Saint Michael's Lent. The traditional forty-day preparation for Michaelmas, beginning on the feast of the Assumption (August 15) and ending on September 29. Associated with Saint Francis of Assisi, who observed this forty-day fast and received the stigmata during it in 1224.
• The Rosary of Saint Michael. A devotional rosary specifically dedicated to asking Saint Michael's intercession, prayed in the traditional rosary pattern with Saint Michael-specific meditations.
• The Holy Face Devotion. On the Stations of the Cross, Saint Thérèse noticed the sixth station (Veronica wiping the face of Jesus) with particular attention. She took her religious name "of the Holy Face" from that station. For Catholics drawn to the idea of spiritual defense and reparation, this devotion is a close companion to the Saint Michael Prayer.

Frequently asked questions

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