The Holy Father has decided to invite all the faithful, from around the world, to pray the Rosary every day throughout the Marian month of October and to unite in communion and penitence, as the People of God, to ask the Holy Mother of God and Saint Michael the Archangel to protect the Church from the devil, who always seeks to separate us from God and from one another.
Recently, before departing for the Baltic States, the Holy Father met with Fr. Fréderic Fornos S.I., International Director of the World Prayer Network for the Pope, and asked him to spread his call to all the faithful of the world, inviting them to end the Rosary with the prayer of the ancient invocation “Sub tuum praesídium” and with the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel, who protects and helps in the fight against evil (see Revelation 12:7-12).
The prayer – the Pontiff affirmed a few days ago, on September 11 in a homily at Santa Marta, citing the first chapter of the Book of Job – is the weapon against the great accuser who “roams the world seeking accusations.” Only prayer can defeat him. Russian mystics and great saints from all traditions advised, in moments of spiritual turbulence, to take shelter under the mantle of the Holy Mother of God by pronouncing the invocation “Sub tuum praesídium”.
The invocation “Sub tuum praesídium” goes as follows:
“Sub tuum praesídium confúgimus,
sancta Dei Génetrix;
nostras deprecatiónes ne despícias in necessitátibus,
sed a perículis cunctis líbera nos semper,
Virgo gloriósa et benedícta”.
[Under your protection we take refuge, Holy Mother of God; do not despise our pleas in our necessities, but deliver us from all danger, oh, always virgin, glorious and blessed!]
With this plea for intercession, the Holy Father asks the faithful around the world to pray that the Holy Mother of God may place the Church under her protective mantle, to defend her from the attacks of the evil one, the great accuser, and at the same time make her ever more aware of the sins, errors, and abuses committed in the present and past, and committed to fighting without hesitation so that evil does not prevail.
The Holy Father has also requested that the recitation of the Holy Rosary during October conclude with the prayer written by Leo XIII:
“Sancte Míchael Archángel, defénde nos in próelio;
contra nequítiam et insídias diáboli esto praesídium.
Imperet illi Deus, súpplices deprecámur,
tuque, Prínceps milítiae caeléstis,
Sátanam aliósque spíritus malígnos,
qui ad perditiónem animárum pervagántur in mundo,
divína virtúte, in inférnum detrúde. Amen”.
[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, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.]
