Competition 2006-2007
Subject: Participants are asked to set the Saint Michael Prayer to music.
Background: One day in the mid-1880's, after celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Pope Leo XIII fell to the floor and was feared dead. He awoke, however, and exclaimed: "What a horrible picture I was permitted to see." In this "picture," it is told, the Pope had been shown the ruinous activities of Satan and the other evil spirits and their attacks against the Church. So moved by this vision was the Holy Father that he soon thereafter composed the prayer to the warrior archangel, which reads:
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 Divine Power of God,
cast into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
In 1886, Pope Leo XIII decreed that the Prayer to Saint Michael be added to prayers after Low Mass and that it be recited in churches throughout the world. The prayer was faithfully recited until 1968 when Pope Paul VI issued the Novus Ordo of the Mass and the prayer was omitted from it, possibly to accommodate a closing hymn (http://smcenter.org/prayerhistory).
Continue to see the Goals and Rules.