A Novena to Saint Michael the Archangel
Quis ut Deus?
Who Is Like God?
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Michael's name in Hebrew, Mi-kha-El, is a rhetorical question, who is like God, rather than a statement; it functions throughout Scripture as a title carried by the archangel rather than a name tied to one narrative episode.
The War
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
The war in heaven between Michael and the dragon is described in Revelation 12:7-9, one of only a handful of places in the Bible where an assembled angelic army is described in direct combat.
The Snares
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
The wording against the wickedness and snares of the devil comes from Pope Leo XIII's 1886 prayer, which he ordered recited after every low Mass throughout the Latin Church, a practice that continued until the liturgical reforms of 1964.
Weigher of Souls
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
The image of Michael holding scales to weigh souls has no direct scriptural source and developed in medieval Western art, becoming a standard element of Last Judgment scenes by the twelfth century.
Guardian of the People
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Daniel 12:1 names Michael as the great prince who has charge of your people, traditionally read as identifying him as the guardian angel of Israel; the Church later extended the same guardianship to herself.
The Dying
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
The traditional Latin prayers for the commendation of a dying person name Michael specifically, asking him to receive the soul and present it in the sight of the Most High.
Courage
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Michael's feast, along with those of Gabriel and Raphael, is kept on 29 September; in the calendar used before 1970, the date belonged to Michael alone, with the other archangels commemorated on separate days.
Not by My Own Strength
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
The confrontation between Michael and the dragon in Revelation 12 includes no description of a physical struggle; the text moves directly from the war beginning to the dragon being cast down.
Thrust Into Hell
The Novena Prayer
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 power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Pope Leo XIII is popularly said to have composed the prayer above after an unsettling experience during Mass in 1886, though the earliest surviving accounts of that story date from decades after his death and cannot be verified from his own contemporary records.
The prayer above is Leo XIII's, 1886, said after low Mass until 1964; it is given in full at the prayer to St. Michael. The guardianship of a people is Daniel 12:1; the war is Revelation 12. What follows each day is a fact about Michael from Scripture, art, or liturgical history, one per day.
