People occasionally approach me and encourage me to publicly pray the Prayer to St Michael the Archangel after Mass. This was common practice at Mass until 1964.

According to legend, some time in the 1880s, Pope Leo XIII collapsed on his chapel floor one morning after Mass, and it seemed he was not long for this world. A short time later, however, he came to and related a conversation he overheard between God and the devil. Satan was granted one century to wreak his worst on the Church. The Holy Father promptly composed the Prayer to St Michael and mandated its recital after Mass.

It’s a great story, but it’s highly apocryphal. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the Church is engaged in spiritual warfare, and St Michael is a powerful intercessor. Since 1964, the prayer to St Michael has been a private devotion, but one which was strongly encouraged by Pope John Paul II:

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.’ (Eph 6:10) The Book of Revelation refers to this same battle, recalling before our eyes the image of St Michael the Archangel. (Rev 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.

Pope Francis consistently invokes warnings against the devil, and counsels strategies for spiritual battle. One of his earliest acts as pope was to consecrate the Vatican to St Michael the Archangel and to St Joseph.

It sounds like the statue of St Michael was an initiative of Pope Benedict. The pope emeritus is also the one who initiated the explicit invocation of St Joseph in the Roman Missal‘s Eucharistic Prayers II to IV, a measure which came into effect under Pope Francis. Whatever the details of the consecration of the Vatican, it seems Pope Benedict and Pope Francis are of one mind about the significance of St Joseph and St Michael in safeguarding the Church.

So it’s with all that in mind that I have started to habitually invoke St Michael when I pray the Third Eucharistic Prayer, which allows for discretionary invocation of specific saints. I’m also going to order prayer cards to St Michael and encourage parishioners to pray the prayer privately immediately after Mass. I don’t have the power to mandate a liturgical recital of the prayer, as I’m not pope, nor am I a bishop. (“No other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.” Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 22.)

Reader poll!

I’ll send the prayer card off to the printers shortly. But first, dear reader, you might advise which of these designs I should go with:

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