The prayer to St. Michael at the end of mass

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My attitude exactly. I think adding a prayer isn’t any big thing. So long as the mass is licit and valid, said by a properly ordained priest, and the Lord comes to me/us in the Eucharist, that’s all I need. Am not going to get in a tizzy about someone adding a recognized prayer to the service.

Edited to add that I have seen the celebrant many times during mass call down a blessing on mothers on Mother’s Day, dads on Father’s Day, vets on Memorial and Veterans day, and other time. I always simply ask myself, would Jesus be displeased. I don’t think so. Considering that over 70% of baptized Catholics no longer attend Sunday mass, I don’t think the Lord is upset with those who do come and add something devotional.
 
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the only place that i’ve heard the prayer to St Michael said after “every” Mass is my Marian shrine & EWTN
 
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There are various minor word changes in versions of this prayer from way back.
I remember my mother in the 60s or early 70s having a discussion with someone about whether the usual wording of the prayer was “prowl about the world” or “wander through the world”. I think my mother had been taught “wander through” at her old church but most everybody else seems to say “prowl about”.

Of course at that point nobody except old skool Catholics like Mom was even saying the prayer. People used to say it was suppressed because they thought it might scare people to hear about the devil prowling about. I didn’t actually learn the prayer till I was an adult, because nobody said it in those days. I am happy it has made a big comeback.
 
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yes this is slightly problematic

you can say “either” phrase; i think

“prowling” has a more evil connotation than “wandering”

so’ i’ll go w/ “prowling”
 
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This prayer is said at my small parish in Alabama. It’s a beautiful prayer.
 
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The Hail Mary is in the Roman Missal, without “thee” and “thy”. It is the last prayer in the book, just before the indices. It is one of seven prayers under the heading “Thanksgiving After Mass”. The “Invocation to Saint Michael the Archangel” is not one of the seven.

In the Catholic Truth Society edition it is on page 1540:

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you;
blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

The English translation of the “Hail Mary” from the Roman Missal copyright (c) 2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Inc. All rights reserved.
 
The blessings for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are in the Book of Blessings, USA edition, 1989, chapters 55 and 56. They are added blessings for the USA, which and not in the original Latin edition of this liturgical book.
 
I can see praying the Hail Mary or the Divine Mercy prayer at the homily, because of their role in educating the laity (which is the purpose of the homily). Otherwise, saying St. Michael’s prayer after communion IS wrong, as it is an addition to the ritual of the Mass. If it is to be said “at Mass”, it should be said after the dismissal (“Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” “Thanks be to God”) which marks the official end of Mass, and before the exit hymn. Neither the entrance nor exit hymns are part of the Mass proper and in fact could be omitted without affecting the liturgy at all.

My introduction to the prayer was back in 1972-73 during my sophomore year of HS when there was a very horrifying event in our area about 70 miles from where I lived. 4 teens (3 guys and the 12-yo girlfriend of one) were partying in a state park, when some other guys came up to them. They killed the 3 guys and took the 12-yo girl back to their place where they spent the rest of the night gang-raping her. The next morning they drove her home and dropped her off in front of her house. Being the early 70’s they didn’t expect her to say anything about being raped. But she had watched 3 of her friends killed. Her mother took her to the hospital, where the police were contacted. The boys bodies were found, and the girl led the police back to the murderer-rapists house.

This event was so totally off-the-wall, doesn’t happen in this part of the country, etc, that everyone was freaked out. There were girls in my high school who were afraid to walk home at night (in our town of no more than 2,000).

In reaction, the bishop ordered that the St. Michael’s Prayer be said at the end of every mass. It continued until well after I had left town, when the new bishop decided we didn’t need that superstitious stuff at Mass. Now I’m trying to get the priests in my parish to say it. We’ll see.
 
My priest does this at my campus Newman center at the end of the weekday masses.
 
Apparently my parish used to, then stopped. We are discussing using it again. Apparently folks are asking for it.
 
As traditional as my parish is, there isn’t a public use of the Leonine prayers after Mass and I don’t know why. I myself and a few other parishioners do it privately after the priest and servers have left the sanctuary. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they were started at the request of Our Lady of Fatima for the conversion of Russia and the destruction of communism.
 
babochka said:
I thought it was only after low Masses?
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This is what my EF missal says as well. They have not been said after any sung Masses that I’ve attended in the past five years at the local ICRSS churches, although there has always been a hymn or prayer of some sort to the Blessed Virgin.

I have never attended an OF Mass that was followed by the Leonine prayers, in whole or in part. Sometimes there is a single Hail Mary.
 
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No, they were started by Pope Leo XIII well before Fatima (in 1884, 30+ years before Fatima) and were originally focused on the issues involving the Papal States at that time. Later Popes shifted the focus to the conversion of Russia, after the sovreignty issues of the Holy See were resolved in 1929.
 
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When I go to Traditional Latin High Mass they don’t do it, but when I go to the Ordinary Form of the Mass for daily Mass they do the St. Michael Prayer at the end since a daily Ordinary Mass is kind of like a Low Mass. I really love it. Slowly but surely the reform of the reforms is happening, just as his holiness Pope Benedict the 16th planned.

They were introduced by Pope Leo the 13th near the end of the 19th century. The reality is that Pope Leo the 13th’s prayers were 3 Hail Marys, 1 Salve Regina, a collect prayer, the Prayer to Saint Michael, then “Sacred Heart of Jesus… have mercy on us” 3 times… but I guess as time went on it was shortened in a lot of cases to just the Prayer to Saint Michael.

Anyways, I am glad to see many Bishops calling for this beautiful prayer to be reinstated. God bless Pope Leo the 13th for his beautiful prayers after the Low Mass!
 
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