The St. Michael the Archangel Prayer
"Defend us in battle." The prayer Leo XIII gave the Church for spiritual combat — every word.
There is a reason this is the prayer of the Catholic man at war for his soul. The Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel does not ask for comfort; it asks for a defender — the prince of the heavenly host — to stand between us and an enemy who is real. Pope Leo XIII gave it to the whole Church, and it has never stopped being needed.
The Prayer to St. Michael
The Leonine prayer
When to pray it
Pray it whenever you are under spiritual attack — temptation, fear, oppression, the hour when the fight feels real — and pray it as a daily habit before you need it. For decades it was said by the whole Church kneeling after every Low Mass; many parishes have restored it after Mass today. It is a fitting close to the Rosary and a strong prayer to teach your children.
Where it came from
The prayer was composed by Pope Leo XIII and, in 1886, ordered to be prayed after every Low Mass as part of the Leonine Prayers. A tradition holds that Leo composed it after a vision of the Church's coming trials. The Leonine Prayers were set aside in 1964, but the St. Michael Prayer endured in private and parish devotion — and in 1994 Pope St. John Paul II urged the faithful not to forget it: "I ask everyone not to forget it and to recite it to obtain help in the battle against the forces of darkness." Sanctum's whole register — Altar. Arms. Allegiance. — lives in this prayer.