The St. Michael the Archangel Prayer

Recently, a friend commented that I’m turning into a Catholic zealot. I suspect other readers of this blog may be getting that impression too, however, as I posted on Ash Wednesday , part of my Lenten sacrifice is to write a new blog entry daily and if I’m lucky it’ll be on some topic of faith. So it’s not that I’m becoming a zealot (perchance I already was?), I’m simply a tad more public about it right now.

I’ve been reading my breviary daily and it got me to thinking about prayers. I’m horrible with prayers. I can’t memorize them, even with 16 years of Catholic education under my belt. And I mean all the prayers, including “grace.” This is a shame, because there’s a lot of good ones that are very meaningful.

Perhaps my favorite is the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. It was suggested to me in the confessional when I was going through a particularly bad bout of making the wrong decisions. The priest, a really understanding fellow, told me to say it every morning for two weeks and see if it would help me stay on the right path. So I did, and it did.

It’s a short prayer but it packs a lot of punch. It requests help while acknowledging that there are forces out there with the intent to crush us.

Saint 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 Divine Power of God –

cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,

who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of men’s souls.

Amen.

Should you be going through a tough time where it feels like you just can’t keep yourself from screwing up or you need a little extra protection, say the prayer to Saint Michael.

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