St. Michael the Archangel

Who they were

Michael is not a saint in the ordinary sense. He was never a human being who lived and died, and there is no biography to write. He is an archangel, and he appears by name in scripture: in the book of Daniel as the protector of Israel, in the letter of Jude, and in Revelation, where he leads the angelic host against the dragon. His name is a question rather than a title. In Hebrew it asks, who is like God.

The Church has venerated him from very early on, and the shape of that veneration has been consistent: he is the one asked to stand between people and harm. Churches dedicated to him tend to sit on high places across Europe, and the feast on 29 September, once called Michaelmas, was for centuries one of the fixed points of the year in England and Ireland, marking the end of the harvest and the start of the legal and academic terms.

Since the Second Vatican Council the feast has honoured Michael together with Gabriel and Raphael, the three archangels named in scripture.

The prayer most people know was composed by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and was said at the end of low Mass in the Latin rite for most of the following century. Its use fell away after the liturgical reforms and then returned, widely, at the initiative of parishes and of individuals rather than by any requirement.

Why people turn to St. Michael the Archangel

The patronage follows directly from how scripture describes him. He is the one who stands against what would harm, and so he became the patron of the people whose work is standing between others and danger: soldiers, police officers, paramedics, and firefighters. The association with spiritual protection is older and broader. When people ask Michael to pray for them, they are usually asking for exactly the thing his name asks about, which is that God is bigger than what they are afraid of.

How to ask their intercession

Name what you are afraid of or who you are worried about, and ask him to pray for their protection. The Leonine prayer below is the common form, and it is a request for defence rather than an incantation. Nothing in Catholic teaching treats it as a charm, and nothing about protection prayers removes the ordinary duty to take sensible precautions.

A prayer to St. Michael the Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Prayer to St. Michael composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1886. Traditional English translation, public domain.