St Michael

This is what he is saying. Feel free to follow along

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Liam has developed a fear of things that "go bump in the night" and as a way to help remove some of this fear we have been developing a devotion to St Michael, the archangel. St. Michael is the angel that threw Satan from Heaven, and is quite the warrior. Once again, we have taken some parental liberties and assured Liam that St Michael knows Kung Fu and sword fighting. Really the message we are trying to get across is that he is equipt to fight anything and that God loves us so much that he has given us protectors in the form of our guardian angels and is always with us so we don't have to be afraid. I don't think we are too far off the mark. We ask Saint Michael for his intercession with God and also for his protection to keep Liam safe from all the bad guys. There is a beautiful prayer written by Pope Leo XII that we have been reciting every night for a month now, Liam surprised us tonight by reciting all of it from memory...we hadn't even been working on memorizing it yet! He is one smart kid, Dom doesn't even have it memorized yet!

And here are a few links about St Michael and some notes on how the prayer came about and why we are to pray it. So I think teaching it to Liam falls into these categories, and he has been sleeping better, so if something sinister really was bothering him, through God, with the use of this prayer we have put a stop to that.

http://saints.sqpn.com/saintm06.htm about St Michael

One day, after celebrating Mass, the aged Pope Leo XIII was in conference with the Cardinals when suddenly he sank to the floor in a deep swoon. Physicians who hastened to his side could find no trace of his pulse and feared that he had expired. However, after a short interval the Holy Father regained consciousness and exclaimed with great emotion: "Oh, what a horrible picture I have been permitted to see!" He had been shown a vision of evil spirits who had been released from Hell and their efforts to destroy the Church. But in the midst of the horror the archangel St. Michael appeared and cast Satan and his legions into the abyss of hell. Soon afterwards Pope Leo XIII composed the following prayer to Saint Michael from traditioninaction.org

The Holy Father exhorts priests to say this prayer as often as possible, as a simple exorcism to curb the power of the devil and prevent him from doing harm. The faithful also may say it in their own name, for the same purpose, as any approved prayer Its use is recommended whenever action of the devil is suspected, causing malice in men, violent temptations and even storms and various calamities from domestic-church.com

On Sunday April 24th 1994, Pope John Paul II recommended this prayer be used by all Catholics as a prayer for the Church when he said:
'"May prayer strengthen us for the spiritual battle we are told about in the Letter to the Ephesians: 'Draw strength from the Lord and from His mighty power' (Ephesians 6:10). The Book of Revelation refers to this same battle, recalling before our eyes the image of St. Michael the Archangel (Revelation 12:7). Pope Leo XIII certainly had a very vivid recollection of this scene when, at the end of the last century, he introduced a special prayer to St. Michael throughout the Church. Although this prayer is no longer recited at the end of Mass, I ask everyone not to forget it and to recite it to obtain help in the battle against forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world."' from OurLadysWarriors.org