Chaplet of St. Michael: How to Pray It, Full Text

The Chaplet of St. Michael — full text

This is the English of The Raccolta; or, Collection of prayers and good works, to which the sovereign pontiffs have attached holy indulgences, printed at Woodstock College, Maryland, in 1878. The book is in the public domain. It abbreviates “Saint” as “S.”; we print it as it stands.

1. OpeningV. Incline unto my aid, O God.
   R. O Lord, make haste to help me.
   Glory be to the Father, etc.
2. First salutation · the Seraphim · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the heavenly choir of the Seraphim, may it please God to make us worthy to receive into our hearts the fire of his perfect charity. Amen.
3. Second salutation · the Cherubim · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the heavenly choir of the Cherubim, may God, in his good pleasure, grant us grace to abandon the ways of sin, and follow the path of Christian perfection. Amen.
4. Third salutation · the Thrones · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the sacred choir of the Thrones, may it please God to infuse into our hearts the spirit of true and sincere humility. Amen.
5. Fourth salutation · the Dominations · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the heavenly choir of the Dominations, may it please God to grant us grace to have dominion over our senses, and to correct our depraved passions. Amen.
6. Fifth salutation · the Powers · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the heavenly choir of the Powers, may God vouchsafe to keep our souls from the wiles and temptations of the devil. Amen.
7. Sixth salutation · the Virtues · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the choir of the admirable heavenly Virtues, may it please God to keep us from falling into temptation, and may he deliver us from evil. Amen.
8. Seventh salutation · the Principalities · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the heavenly choir of the Principalities, may it please God to fill our souls with the spirit of true and sincere obedience. Amen.
9. Eighth salutation · the Archangels · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the heavenly choir of Archangels, may it please God to grant us the gift of perseverance in the faith and in all good works, that we may thereby be enabled to attain the glory of paradise. Amen.
10. Ninth salutation · the Angels · Our Father once, Hail Mary three timesBy the intercession of S. Michael and the heavenly choir of all the angels, may God vouchsafe to grant us their guardianship through this mortal life, and after death a happy entrance into the everlasting glory of heaven. Amen.
11. Four Our FathersThen say the Our Father, four times, in conclusion: the first to S. Michael, the second to S. Gabriel, the third to S. Raphael, the fourth to our angel guardian.
12. AnthemMichael, glorious prince, chief and champion of the heavenly host, guardian of the souls of men, conqueror of the rebel angels, steward of the palace of God under Jesus Christ, our worthy leader, endowed with superhuman excellence and virtue: vouchsafe to free us all from every ill, who with full confidence have recourse to thee; and by thy incomparable protection enable us to make progress every day in the faithful service of our God.
13. VersicleV. Pray for us, most blessed Michael, prince of the Church of Jesus Christ.
    R. That we may be made worthy of his promises.
14. PrayerAlmighty and eternal God, who in thine own marvellous goodness and pity didst, for the common salvation of man, choose the glorious archangel Michael to be the prince of thy Church: make us worthy, we pray thee, to be delivered by his beneficent protection from all our enemies, that, at the hour of our death, none of them may approach to harm us; rather do thou vouchsafe unto us that, by the same archangel Michael, we may be introduced into the presence of thy most high and divine majesty. Through the merits of the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Raccolta (Woodstock College, 1878), no. 137, “Angelical Crown in honor of S. Michael the Archangel,” pp. 301–305, public domain — archive.org

The wording you may already know

Most chaplet cards and websites today print a newer English of the same nine petitions: “may the Lord make us worthy to burn with the fire of perfect charity,” and so on. Their opening line is Psalm 69:2 as the Douay-Rheims gives it: “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.” The 1910 London edition of the Raccolta opens the chaplet with those words too. Pray the version you know by heart; the petitions are the same.

Powers fifth, or Virtues fifth?

In both the 1878 and the 1910 Raccolta the fifth salutation goes to the Powers and the sixth to the Virtues. Some versions printed today swap them. Nothing rides on it. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) says of the angelic choirs that “no proposition touching the angelic hierarchies is binding on our faith,” and records that St. Thomas Aquinas, following the treatise ascribed to St. Denis, placed “the Dominations, Virtues, and Powers” together in the second hierarchy. We keep the Raccolta’s order.

How to pray it, step by step

1. Open. Say the versicle and response, then one Glory Be.
2. Nine salutations. For each choir, say its salutation with one Our Father and three Hail Marys.
3. Four Our Fathers. One each to St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael and your guardian angel.
4. Close. The anthem to St. Michael, the versicle and response, and the closing prayer.

Chaplet beads made for this devotion keep the count for you, and the Raccolta speaks of “the medal, representing the holy angels, appended to it.” You do not need them to pray it. Count the Hail Marys on your fingers; the prayer is the same.

The nine choirs and what you ask of each

The Catechism says of the angels that “With their whole beings the angels are servants and messengers of God” (CCC 329), and St. Paul names some of their ranks: “whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities” (Colossians 1:16, as CCC 331 quotes it). St. Gregory the Great, quoted in the Catholic Encyclopedia, put the full list this way: “We know on the authority of Scripture that there are nine orders of angels, viz., Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominations, Throne, Cherubim and Seraphim.”

Read down the chaplet’s petitions and you have a man’s whole spiritual life, from the top of it to the end of it:

• Seraphim — the fire of perfect charity.
• Cherubim — to abandon the ways of sin.
• Thrones — true and sincere humility.
• Dominations — dominion over the senses; the passions corrected.
• Powers — kept from the wiles and temptations of the devil.
• Virtues — kept from falling into temptation; delivered from evil.
• Principalities — true and sincere obedience.
• Archangels — perseverance in the faith and in good works.
• Angels — their guardianship in this life, and heaven after it.

Pray it slowly once and it works as an examination of conscience: charity, sin, pride, the senses, temptation, obedience, perseverance, death. If one line stings, that is the one to bring to confession.

Where the chaplet comes from

What the record shows

The documented fact is the indulgence. The 1878 Raccolta records that Pope Pius IX, by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of August 8, 1851, granted indulgences to the faithful who say this chaplet; the 1910 London edition gives the same date.

The story behind it

Devotional accounts trace the chaplet to a vision. EWTN writes that “The history of this Chaplet goes back to a devout Servant of God, Antonia d’Astonac, who had a vision of St. Michael,” and that “He told Antonia to honor him by nine salutations to the nine Choirs of Angels.” Aleteia describes her as a Portuguese Carmelite nun.

Two honest limits. First, the Raccolta’s entry for the chaplet, in both editions we read, says nothing about Antonia or a vision, and we found no primary source for the story; Aleteia itself writes, “Whatever the authenticity of the vision.” Second, you will read online that “Pope Pius approved Antonia’s vision.” The decree the Raccolta records grants indulgences to those who say the chaplet. It does not mention a vision. The chaplet stands on its own words, and they need no legend.

The promises, and how to hold them

The same accounts attach promises to the devotion. EWTN gives them this way: whoever practiced it “would have, when approaching Holy Communion, an escort of nine angels chosen from each of the nine Choirs,” and for those who say it daily, “his continual assistance and that of all the holy angels during life.”

The Church’s teaching on private revelations tells you how to hold words like these. The Catechism: “Throughout the ages, there have been so-called ‘private’ revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history” (CCC 67).

So pray the chaplet for what it asks, not for what is said to come with it. What the Church does teach about the angels is enough: “From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession” (CCC 336).

Indulgences: 1851 and today

The 1878 Raccolta lists what Pius IX granted for the chaplet: an indulgence of seven years and seven quarantines each time it is said; one hundred days, daily, for carrying the chaplet or kissing its medal; a plenary indulgence once a month for those who say it every day, after confession and communion and prayer for the Church and the Pope; and plenary indulgences on certain feasts of St. Michael and the other angels.

Those grants belong to a discipline that has since changed. In 1967 Pope Paul VI’s apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina ruled that “A partial indulgence will henceforth be designated only with the words ‘partial indulgence’ without any determination of days or years” (n. 4), and ordered the collection of indulgenced prayers “revised with a view to attaching indulgences only to the most important prayers and works of piety, charity and penance” (n. 13).

The collection in force today, the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum (fourth edition, 1999), does not name the Chaplet of St. Michael among the grants we read. It does grant a partial indulgence to anyone who devoutly uses an object of piety blessed by a priest or deacon (concession 14), and its list of such objects reads “crucifixo vel cruce, corona, scapulari, numismate” (norm 15). For what an indulgence is and how one is gained, see what a plenary indulgence is.

When to pray it

• On his feast. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives St. Michael’s feast as 29 September.
• In temptation. The fifth and sixth salutations ask exactly for this: to be kept “from the wiles and temptations of the devil” and “from falling into temptation.”
• For the dying. The closing prayer asks that “at the hour of our death, none of them may approach to harm us.” Pray it at a bedside, or for a man you know is near the end.
• Daily, if you can keep it. A man who wants something shorter for every day has the St. Michael prayer.

The Chaplet of St. Michael and the St. Michael prayer are two different things. The prayer is a single short petition, “defend us in battle”; the chaplet is a set of nine salutations prayed on beads. Our page on the St. Michael prayer has its full text in English and Latin, who wrote it, and St. Michael in Scripture.