From the earliest liturgical feasts to the consecration of nations in our own day, the successors of Saint Peter have repeatedly placed the universal Church under the protection of the Prince of the Heavenly Host.
Established the feast of the Holy Angels
Gelasius I is among the first popes to formally honor Saint Michael in the liturgy. He composed the liturgical texts for the feast of the Apparition on 29 September at Mount Gargano — the date that would later become the joint Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. By this act the devotion born of an Italian mountaintop was woven into the prayer of the whole Latin Church.
Sent the Archangel's banner before a plague-ridden city
During a terrible plague in Rome, Gregory the Great led a procession through the streets. He is said to have seen Saint Michael sheathing a flaming sword above the mausoleum of Hadrian — a sign that the pestilence would end. He renamed the colossal tomb the 'Castel Sant'Angelo,' and crowned it with a statue of the Archangel, a witness that stands over the Tiber to this day.
Composed the Leonine Prayer in 1884
Following a vision of demons gathered over Rome, Leo XIII instituted the Prayer to Saint Michael at the end of every Low Mass throughout the universal Church and enriched it with an indulgence. His prayer echoed through Catholic churches for three quarters of a century and became the most widely-recited invocation of the Archangel in modern times.
Named Saint Michael patron of police, 1949
On 13 April 1949, Pius XII, in the apostolic letter 'Praeconia' published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, formally named Saint Michael the Archangel as heavenly patron of those who serve in the police forces, confiding their daily danger and their pursuit of justice to the protection of the 'Prince of the Heavenly Militia.'
Restored the Leonine Prayer in 1994
In the wake of Pope Paul VI's earlier exhortation, John Paul II explicitly urged the faithful to reclaim the Prayer to Saint Michael. 'Although this prayer is no longer recited at the end of Mass,' he taught in 1994 at the shrine of Santa Maria Consolatrice, 'I ask everyone — bishops, priests, religious and the faithful — to take it up again and to spread it.' He invoked the Archangel continually against 'the spirit of darkness and deception.'
Invoked Saint Michael in the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine
On 25 March 2022, in union with bishops throughout the world, Pope Francis consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and concluded with an explicit invocation of 'Saint Michael the Archangel, be at our side in the day of battle.' He has repeatedly placed the universal Church under the protection of the 'Prince of the Heavenly Host.'
The cry of the popes becomes your own: entrust your day, your home, and your soul to the Archangel the Church has never stopped invoking.
Open the Prayers
