Archives: Bring Back The Michael Prayer!

First archived article:

This week of the archangels, celebrating the feast day of St. Michael, I’d like to say that I have been to a number of holy places — spots where there is an especially powerful presence, the actual feeling of something supernatural. Highest on this list would be the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem; the Cathedral of the Holy Shroud in Turin; the chapel of the apparitions at Fatima; the Lourdes grotto; and where I am right now — apparition hill just outside the village of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

These are all powerful places and in their midst I would also rank the Cave of the Archangel Michael — in fact, it is right there at the top. This is a grotto in eastern Italy, and believe me, there is a presence here! There is the real feeling of Saint Michael. When I visited the cave in 1990 for the first glorious time, a disheveled man who had simply walked in and was sitting before the statue of Michael suddenly went through a spontaneous deliverance as a demon tha obviously inhabited him screeched and yelled as the Holy Spirit sought to cast it out. Chthonic spirits are not welcome here!

That’s power. I urge you all to visit it. I have a stone from the cave that I treasure as one of my most powerful relics.

And I also have a rare picture of the archangel that I bought at the cave (yes, a cave, not a church). We feel the picture is so potent that we have adopted it, along with the Shroud, as the official devotion for this website.

I have heard from others who have told me about encountering angels on the way to St. Michael’s cave or of simply experiencing the kind of feeling that is rare outside of the most famous sites of apparition. But that’s what happens at Monte Gargano (where the cave is located): there is a feeling that can only be compared to spots like Mount Krizevac or the Church of the Nativity in Jerusalem, and it only makes sense when we take a look at the history—the long history—of this place.

Located in stony hillsides not far from San Giovanni Rotundo (where St. Pio lived), the cave is reached by walking 86 steps subdivided into five flights and interrupted by four landings. It is a mysterious place, the galleries supported by big Gothic arches and ogival vaults, the side walls are illuminated by small windows.

But most mysterious is the history: in 404 A.D. a wealthy man, frustrated when one of his cattle refused to move from the entrance of the cave, took up his bow and sent an arrow toward the animal — an arrow that then whirled like a boomerang and came back to wound the archer!

So frightened was the man that he went to see the bishop of Siponto, who in praying for an answer experienced the apparition of Michael. The archangel identified himself as the angel “who ever stands before the Lord” and was “keeping this place under my special protection.”

Although there is a basilica in the cave, it has never been consecrated by the Church because the Church considers it the only basilica consecrated by an actual angel!

In another instance when Neapolitans decided to wage war on Siponto, Michael appeared again to the bishop assuring him of victory. As soon as the attack began, all of Monte Gargano was enveloped by a dark cloud that shot forth lightning of such strength as to chase away the enemy.

No wonder the power is still felt. Let us take a lesson from it on the archangel’s tremendous intervention. Michael! He is the angelic prince of Israel, guardian of Jacob, known in Islamic writing as Mika’il.

In our current day, he figures often into mysticism. Although most don’t realize it, it was only after invocation of St. Michael that a child was freed from possession in the real-life case of The Exorcist (this never made it into the movie). I once spoke to a level-headed woman who claimed to have seen Michael as a gigantic being at a time when she and her husband were going through a crisis. She claims she saw him with her eyes open. He was so huge, she says, that she could only see to his knees. He wore strapped sandals, and his feet looked like they had trekked across the earth. She could see the tip of a sword. I also remember the Ukrainian mystic Josyp Terelya seeing Michael as a wise old man who instructed him in a dream.

Michael! A wise man. A warrior. The warrior. Some say the great archangel is the author of Psalm 85.

In Jewish lore it’s even believed that the fire Moses saw in the burning bush had Michael’s appearance.

Christians invoke him as the angel of deliverance.

This is a mighty intercessor who can help you in many distressing situations. Invoke him. Do his novena. Ask for his help. He is stronger than anything bad. “Who is like unto God?” was Michael’s cry against the fallen angels who tried to usurp the throne of God.

The Chaplet

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Second archived article:

It has to be considered a mistake. It has left the Church without a vital safeguard. Someday, it may will be aligned with great smoke that rose in the sanctuary.

We speak here of the Prayer to the Archangel Michael. It’s a prayer that was promoted and refined by Pope Leo XIII after some sort of mystical experience in which the Pontiff was given to understand that Satan was in a special period of aggression.

It was then, in a more emphatic way, that the prayer was promulgated, and in 1886 Leo XIII ordered it said at the conclusion of Mass, which was done until the fateful 1960s — when a torrent of evil suddenly poured into the world.

In 1964, in the first wave of post-Vatican II changes — in what was known as the Instructio Prima — this magnificent and potent invocation to the archangel who threw Lucifer from heaven was removed from low Mass in the Catholic Church along with a reading of a last Gospel.

Since that time, what have we seen? Priests who have left the priesthood. Pews that emptied. And now, scandal. A fantastic abuse scandal. Aridity. Vacant pews. Across society, Christianity and particularly the Catholic segment became the focus of disdain in a culture that opened itself to infernal legions. Removal of the prayer– along with the near-elimination of exorcism — allowed an influx of evil. In 1972, speaking in the aftermath of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI himself said “the smoke of Satan has entered by some crack into the temple of God.”

He was speaking at least in part about the pervasive scientism in society, but that there were problems in the sanctuary soon became obvious. It was in 1964 that the new standard was directed, and in 1968 that the new liturgy, minus the prayer, was authorized. A shield was removed. A shield and a sword!

What happened in that specific period?

Our youth strayed. The choir was replaced by rock bands. Priests were made to feel outcasts. There were even songs dedicated to the devil. Television replaced the majesty of religion. Free sex. Drugs. Abortion. The psychiatrist’s couch replaced the Confessional — and the exorcist. Instead of public prayer there was now public profanity. Madalyn O’Hair won in the courts. No more Bible-reading. But soon: abortion. In the same chronological window that saw elimination of the Michael prayer, the first Church of Satan rose (1966) in the U.S. and the satanic Bible three years later.

It was against such things that the prayer was potent, as was the practice of deliverance, something Jesus had commanded. Most of the exorcisms were taken out of baptismal rites, and the Church eliminated the minor order of “exorcist” (which young men traveled on the way to priesthood). Exorcism became rare at the same time that the devil became pervasive.

Our current Pope [this written at the time of John Paul II] is trying to stem this tide, and on at least two occasions, in 1982 and on September 7, 2000, personally conducted exorcisms. He was accompanied by Father Gabriel Amorth, the official exorcist of Rome, who says:

“I believe that it was a mistake to have eliminated, without a suitable replacement, the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel that we used to recite after every Mass. I am convinced that allowing the ministry of exorcism to die is an unforgivable deficiency to be laid squarely at the door of bishops. Every diocese should have at least one exorcist at the cathedral, and every large parish and sanctuary should have one as well. Today the exorcist is seen as a rarity, almost impossible to find. His activity, on the other hand, has an indispensable pastoral value, as valuable as that of the preacher, the confessor, and those who administer the other sacraments. The Catholic hierarchy must say a forceful mea culpa. I am personally acquainted with many Italian bishops; I know of only a few who have ever practiced or who have assisted during an exorcism or who are adequately aware of this problem.”

It’s time to bring Michael back. Evil can not stand in his presence. The situation is growing severe — as we saw on September 11 when the very smoke from the World Trade Center formed demonic visages.

The Chaplet

Opening Prayer to Our Lady
Oh, Immaculate Heart! Help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future!

From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction,
From every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us, deliver us.

Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies. Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world your infinite power of merciful Love. May it put a stop to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of Hope.

Saint Michael the Archangel, invincible prince of the angelic hosts and glorious protector of the universal Church, I greet you and praise you for that splendor with which God has adorned you so richly. I thank God for the great graces he has bestowed upon you, especially to remain faithful when Lucifer and his followers rebelled, and to battle victoriously for the honor of God and the divinity of the Son of Man.

Saint Michael, I consecrate to you my soul and body. I choose you as my patron and protector and entrust the salvation of my soul to your care. Be the guardian of my obligation as a child of God and of the Catholic Church as again I renounce Satan, his works and pomps. Assist me by your powerful intercession in the fulfillment of these sacred promises, so that imitating your courage and loyalty to God, and trusting in your kind help and protection, I may be victorious over the enemies of my soul and be united with God in heaven forever. Amen.

The Chaplet of St. Michael (A Sincere Act of Contrition)
O God, come to my assistance,
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.

Salutation #1
By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Seraphim, may the Lord make us worthy to burn with the fire of perfect charity. Amen.