The Leonine Prayers After Mass

For eighty years (1885–1965), Catholics throughout the world recited a set of prayers at the end of low Mass, in company with the priest kneeling at the steps of the altar. These prayers were commonly referred to as “prayers after Mass,” and sometimes as “the Leonine prayers,” since it was the great Pope Leo XIII who instituted them at the end of the 19th century. 

In regard to their disappearance, two things should be noted: first, these prayers were prescribed only for low Masses of a private or non-solemn character, when no further devotion followed after the Last Gospel. Thus, whenever Mass was sung (whether a Missa cantata or a Solemn High Mass), or a low Mass was said as the principal conventual or parochial liturgy of the day, these prayers were omitted, as they were, too, whenever Mass was followed by Eucharistic adoration, public recitation of the Rosary or other such devotion. 

This should be mentioned because it was the intention of the liturgical reform—whether this intention was ever actually fulfilled or not!—to elevate the character of liturgical worship so that more Masses would have the solemn public character of the High Masses of old, including their musical and ritual splendor. To this end, the prayers after low Mass were “abolished” in the 1960s, although one could just as well say that they were made optional, since no one officially prohibited them. Indeed, any prayers approved for public recitation, such as the Litany of the Saints or the Litany of the Sacred Heart, can be prayed in common in Church, provided no liturgical rubrics are violated. For example, a priest after Mass could emerge from the sacristy, expose the Blessed Sacrament for adoration, and recite one of these litanies with the congregation; but the same would not be permissible while Mass was being celebrated. 

In recent years, there has been a remarkable revival of interest in the classic Roman Rite or “Tridentine Mass,” something that would not have been predicted back in the 1960’s. Not surprisingly, there has also been a revival of the Leonine prayers at the end of Mass—at least privately prayed by oneself, if not publicly with the whole congregation. Their value is slowly becoming appreciated once more. Young devout Catholics who discover them are wondering what purpose they once served and whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to recite them again. There is a growing sense of their fittingness as a kind of public thanksgiving and petition immediately after the great and august mysteries of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass have been enacted upon the altar and their fruits received in Holy Communion. The custom is especially good as a check against the all-too-frequent tendency to rush out of Mass immediately after the final blessing. 

It could be said without much exaggeration that the success of the liturgical reform can be measured by the number of faithful who remain in fervent prayer after Mass. If the whole Church is filled with praying men, women, and children, then the liturgy has been “successful.” If there is hardly anyone left one minute after the final blessing, the Mass is not in fact reaching into people’s souls and affecting them in any significant way. 

Reciting some formal prayers after Mass helps everyone slow down, take a deep breath, and linger in the Presence of the Lord, letting His Eucharist work in our souls, giving Him the chance to speak to us and teach us. The Leonine prayers themselves will not automatically turn us into people of prayer, for sanctity is something that can never be “bought” or “produced” without the grace-inspired effort of constant prayer, but they do act powerfully to remove obstacles and cultivate in us the right dispositions to further prayer. They can, in short, lead us in the direction of true prayer and can form in us the right habits of post communion prayer.

In my experience, these prayers are profitable, whether recited by the congregation with the priest, or simply said quietly by individual Christians in the pews. When some of the faithful remain behind after Mass and set an example of prayer, it will surely, over time, have a good effect on others, reminding them that what Mass is for does not “end” with the final prayer and blessing; only the offering of Mass ends, whereas the offering of self to God, which is both symbolized and enacted in the mysteries of the Mass, is meant to continue at all times. 

We should pause to consider the richness and beauty of these Leonine prayers and the deep significance of the way they were grouped together, so that we can better understand why they so nourish the soul when used consistently in connection with Holy Mass. The set of prayers can be divided broadly into four parts: (I) the prayers to our Lady, consisting of three Ave Maria’s and the Salve Regina; (II) the prayer to God invoking Our Lady, St. Joseph, Sts. Peter and Paul, and all the saints on behalf of sinners and of Holy Mother Church; (III) the prayer to St. Michael asking for his help in our battle against the demons; and (IV) the final threefold invocation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, beseeching His mercy. (In some communities, the Salve Regina is recited only by the priest; in others, by the priest and the people together; in still other places, it is customary to recite it in the manner of alternating verses and responses.)1

Intercession of the Saints
The first thing to notice about this set of prayers is the strong emphasis on the intercession of the Saints, above all the great Mother of God, Mediatrix of all grace. Her spouse follows not far behind, then the great pillars of the Church, Peter and Paul, and all the saints, with a special prayer raised up to the prince of the angelic army, Michael (and implicitly, to all the angels of which he is, by God’s grace, the commander). Each of us constantly needs the help of Mary and Joseph, Peter and Paul, Michael and his soldiers, and all the holy ones of God, for the powers we fight against are not flesh and blood but mighty invisible spirits in the high places, and forces of evil whose combined might is far too great for any of us by ourselves. Foreign to these prayers is the falsehood that has deceived, so to speak, even some of the elect: that we who are God’s children in baptism, we who are fed at His table, do not need the continual help of God’s angels and saints, but can “do it on our own” because “we have God on our side.” “If God is for us, who can be against us?” 

There is a deep truth to this view, and also a presumptuous misunderstanding. Yes, it is always enough to have God on one’s side—there is no one stronger! But how does God fight for us, how does He choose to help us? Through His saints and angels, through His servants and ministers, through His faithful ones. This is an expression of His unspeakable mercy and generosity: He wishes to make His whole Church participate in the battle and in the victory. Every member of Christ, from lowest to highest, has his part to play in the work of redemption, the triumph of good over evil, the conquest of the kingdom of darkness by the kingdom of light. 

In this way, too, God teaches us humility, dependence, obedience; He teaches us not to trust our own prayers as though we were already holy and blameless, and to go into battle as lowly soldiers in the vast army of the servants of God. No, we shall not be saved by ourselves, even with God “on our side”; we shall not triumph over evil by ourselves, even if “God is for us.” Because Christ is on our side, we shall be saved by belonging to His Mystical Body; because Christ is for us, we will triumph in the company of all who belong to His Body, and through their help. 

Our Lord will never let us forget the truth that without Mary and Joseph, there would be no Holy Family, no family of God whether in heaven or on earth; that without Peter and Paul, there would be no Church, for the Church is founded upon the Apostles, Peter at their head, and she and her members withstand the gates of hell only when all remain standing upon this one foundation in Christ; and finally, that without Michael and his soldiers, possessed of intellects far keener than ours and weapons far more damaging to the demons, we could never gain victory in our ongoing warfare against powers as devious and formidable as those arrayed against us.

Intimacy with Jesus
And yet, though we (following the lead of the Leonine prayers) rightly emphasize the countless ways in which God wills that our salvation be worked out hierarchically, all the ways He defends us and sanctifies us through His ministers and brings about our salvation in communion with others and in reliance upon them, at the same time there is no conflict between such a vision of the cosmos and the immediacy, the intimacy, of the soul’s nuptial union with her Lord. Everything that God does for the soul by means of outward agents, by means of saints and angels, He is also always doing within her; God alone acts through others in such a way that He is also always acting inside of those upon whom He act by the hands and voices of His ministers. 

When the Apostles preached the faith throughout the world, it was Jesus Christ preaching in them by the power of the Holy Spirit, and when a pagan took the word into his heart and embraced it, the birth of faith was prompted no less by the Spirit than by the sermon; nay, the sermon had its efficacy from the Spirit, while the Spirit chose to work by means of the sermon. So, too, when the saints pray for us, their prayer is the Holy Spirit “groaning” within them on behalf of those for whom they pray; it is the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who mercifully hears the “groanings” of the saints and grants their prayers for the salvation of the faithful. God is the beginning and the end of the salvation that we, sustained by His grace, work out in fear and trembling, the salvation strengthened all the while by the saints’ prayers and defended by the angels’ spiritual swords. 

So, as soon as our lips form the word “Maria,” the word “Jesus” is not long in coming, for Mary always leads to Jesus; when we pray to our most gracious Advocate, we pray for nothing else but that she may show Jesus unto us. When we pray to all the saints, what do we pray for? The conversion of sinners, our own conversion, for sin begins here, in my own breast; the freedom and exaltation of Holy Mother Church, which includes our freedom and exaltation as members of the militant Church. We are asking the saints to bring Jesus to us, to make us like Jesus, we are asking them to ask God to convert our hearts so that we, too, may stand among those who are perfect imitators of Jesus and mediators of His life to others—we are begging for a taste of true liberty which is none other than Jesus Christ, we are begging to know true exaltation, which is none other than the heavenly glory of beholding Him face to face.

Turning to the Leonine prayers, then, notice the way that the name of Jesus, God’s Christ or Anointed One, is sweetly, lovingly invoked: “blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus”; “after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus”; “pray for us . . . that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ”; “most sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.” This is the same Lord that we, O wonder of wonders!, have just received in Holy Communion, sharing in the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, present in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar; and these prayers gently keep our hearts fixed on the Beloved whom we have received, or rather, the divine Lover who has called us and caught us up to Himself. Let nothing come between us, the Lord seems to be saying: let our friendship grow until it is vast and great, like the intimacy I enjoy with my Mother; let my ever-flowing grace make you worthy of Me and of My promises, that we may never be parted in time or in eternity; let the prayers of all My friends, the angels and saints, win favor for you and carry you forward until the day of your liberation and exaltation, the day when you will be freed at last from the malice and snares of the devil and will behold Me face to face—your divine Redeemer, the One who loves you with a gentle and fiery love that you could never fathom . . .

In this way one can see the indissoluble bond between the communion of saints or the Mystical Body of Christ and its head, the Lord Jesus, who is the holiness of the saints, the source of their prayers’ power, the King from whom their glory radiates. There is no attainment of Christ apart from belonging to His Body, the Church, for whom He gave up His life on the Cross, that “she might be a spotless bride, free from all blemish.” This is what we signify every time we invoke the saints, our patterns in the faith, our brothers and sisters, our heavenly patrons, who are already sharing perfectly in that freedom from all blemish, even while we are yet struggling to be worthy of our calling. 

Order within the prayers
A third thing one sees in the prayers is the beauty of their order—their order with respect to one another, and the internal order of their petitions. An entire book could be written about this, but a few points should suffice to spark further thoughts. 

We honor the Blessed Virgin Mary first, as is fitting, for there is neither saint or angel in the entire kingdom of God more glorious nor more holy than she. At the same time, we honor her precisely on account of the One who is the fruit of her womb, since all her privileges and greatness derive from one fact: that she is indeed the Mother of God. Because she is the Mother of God, we turn to her first and always, invoking her aid to help us reach, and hold onto in faith, and someday see with glorified eyes, the blessed fruit of her womb, the Lord. We pray to her on behalf of the Church, whose deepest identity is represented by and superabundantly fulfilled in her person and fidelity. Because the Church’s ultimate vocation is to be perfectly conformed to God’s will as the Mother of God is conformed to His will, the Church’s identity and calling is to be Marian—to be, for the world and in the world, what the Virgin Mary is and always will be, and to do, for and in the world, exactly what she has done and always will do. 

We honor Joseph second, for the Lord gave him the place of honor second only to Mary’s. Joseph is the patron of the universal Church, the protector and provider whom the Lord has placed over His people to give them their measure of wheat in due season, the carpenter who has been given the task of teaching each generation how to build up the Church of God with patient labor and repair her earthly defects. 

Then we honor Peter and Paul, upon whose double confession of blood in Rome our glorious faith is built, as upon solid rock that no winds of false doctrine can shake and no wiles of the devil can undermine. It is the one faith of Peter and Paul—the faith that frees the fallen soul from the slavery of ignorance and error; that lifts the freed soul up to the throne of God, who is the everlasting truth, the ancient beauty ever new; that guarantees liberty and exaltation for converted sinners, for every man who, as long as he lives on this earth, is a sinner in need of conversion (“pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”). With this faith firmly held, we are more than conquerors, we are co-heirs with Christ, fellow citizens of heaven, friends of God, and nothing can hold us back from our destiny, no prince of the earth, no power of the air; nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Then, finally, we turn to that great heavenly prince, Michael, whose named means, “Who is like unto God?” Charity, the peak of the supernatural life, is the very opposite of that “ruin of soul,” the guilt of mortal sin, that the devil and his angels try to bring about; charity is the soul’s renovation and perfection, her beauty, her splendor, her power to be lit up and to give off light, her glory, everything that God loves and the devil hates, everything that Michael and his innumerable soldiers of light are always working to guard and to promote. St. Michael the Archangel, and all the angels who glory in their obedience to God, want every soul to be as dazzling in the beauty of holiness as the angelic spirits themselves. What is it that fills the soul with light, what makes her burn with the heat of intense life and communicate this life to the sick or dying? It is the love that Christ came to ignite upon the earth, the flame that not only purges and melts, but heals and moistens and refreshes. This love, which is the heart of our hidden life, the life hidden with Christ in God, is none other than a sharing in the love of Christ’s very Heart, united in the Person of the Word to the eternal, infinite divine love itself. 

When we cry out “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!” we offer a petition that encapsulates the entire Gospel, beginning with the Incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary, when the tiny Heart began to beat after conception, tracing out a path of mercy along the ways of this world, culminating in the Passion and death when the water and blood of the sacraments streamed forth from this wounded Heart, giving us access to His innermost life, the life of the glorified Lord who sits at the right hand of the Father and awaits our journey to Him, so that when we arrive, He can speak to us the blessed words: “Good and faithful servant, beloved disciple whom I love with the price of my life, rest your head upon my breast, receive from My Heart the life that never ends.”

We honor our Lady first with the Ave Maria, a prayer whose vast spiritual magnitude is, so to speak, inversely proportional to its tiny size. So brief a prayer, and yet it contains the whole history of salvation, the entire essence of faith. The words of the angel and of Elizabeth, announcing the beginning of the new and everlasting Covenant, the dawning of the age of grace, the fulfillment of all the prophecies, the blessedness of the Mother and the still greater blessedness of her Son . . . The vocation of Mary in her own lifetime, in the mysterious life of the Jewish people, in the life of all the children of God, sons and daughters of the Church, who were born when the Word became flesh within her womb at the moment of self-surrendering faith . . . The beautiful name of Mary, the one mortal whom God chose to be His Mother, showing us how intensely particular is the love of God, how the Lord of heaven and earth, incapable of needing or gaining anything from a created world that He infinitely surpasses in His infinite perfection, chooses a Bride for Himself, loves her jealously, is “beside himself with love” for her! . . . The holiness of Mary and of all who imitate her in bearing and giving witness to her offspring, the Holy One of God . . . The Lord, with His all-powerful hands, ever shaping the communion of saints out of the community of sinners gathered around their sinless Mother—gathered now, at every moment of time, and at the hour of death, each man’s death and judgment, and the death of this present order at the Second Coming, when all shall rise, the wicked to punishment, the righteous to glory . . . .

There is this, and much more, in those few lines called the Ave Maria; once again, there is the Gospel from start to finish. A great prayer is always like that: it expresses, in just a few words, the inexhaustible mystery of salvation. Much the same could be said of the Salve Regina (Hail, Holy Queen). Once again, we are confronted with a world, a “culture,” that one must live in for a long time in order to understand. In some ways, the Salve Regina could be called the mystical counterpart of the Ave Maria. It takes up and develops the same petitions from within, using the sort of words that arise spontaneously in the heart of one who deeply and dearly loves his Mother, the humble Virgin of Nazareth and the glorious Queen of heaven—hushed words of reverence, affection, confidence, trust. 

The Prayer to St. Michael
Given the remarkable circumstances of its composition and the fact that prayer to the angels is not very familiar to many Catholics today, we must spend some additional time looking at the prayer to the Archangel Michael. First, what do we know about the angel named Michael, a name meaning, “Who is like unto GOD”? The Book of Daniel mentions him several times as “one of the chief princes” and as the special protector of Israel who will rise up as “the great prince.” Michael’s central role in the confrontation between good and evil at the end of history is explicitly mentioned in the same book. Some Christian theologians (e.g., St. Gregory Nazianzen) believed that Michael was the angel who spoke to Moses on God’s behalf from the burning bush and upon Mt. Sinai, and also that he is the angel who guards the closed gates of Eden and had charge of the plagues visited upon the Egyptians. The Epistle of St. Jude expressly mentions Michael as having contended with the devil over the body of Moses. The Apocalypse of St. John gives the most explicit testimony of all: “there was a great battle in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels; and they did not prevail, neither was their place found any more in heaven.” The scriptural account goes on to reveal that it is Michael who thrusts the devil and his slaves into the abyss and chains them there. Michael’s apparitions outnumber those of any other angel; he is believed to have appeared, among other places, at Chonae and Sosthenion, at Monte Gargano in Italy and Mont Saint Michel off the coast of Normandy. He visited St. Wilfrid, St. Bertrand, St. Hubert, St. Francis of Paola, and St. Joan of Arc, and is believed by some to be the angel who appeared to St. Francis of Assisi at the time of his stigmatization. Christian tradition holds St. Michael to be captain of the angels who are sent by God into the world to work for the salvation of human beings; this would mean, among other things, that he is prince of all guardian angels. Popular piety assigns to him also the role of healer (along with St. Raphael), the task of writing deeds in the Book of Life, of weighing souls in the scales of divine justice, of conducting just souls into heaven, and of casting evil souls into hell. 

But how did we end up with this particular prayer, prescribed to be said after every low Mass? One day in 1884, Pope Leo XIII, having just finished celebrating Mass, was leaving the tabernacle when he suddenly collapsed. The cardinals present rushed to him and took his pulse, fearing he was dead. Some moments later, the Pope regained consciousness, and then related what he had experienced. In front of the tabernacle, he had heard a confrontation between Jesus and Satan. Satan boasted that if he had enough time and enough power, he could destroy the Church. Jesus asked him: “How much time, and how much power?” Satan replied that he would need but a century and greater influence over men who would give themselves to him. Jesus said, “So be it.” The twentieth century is the century given to Satan to do his best to destroy the Church.

Apparently, Leo was then permitted a horrible vision of the attacks that would be waged by evil spirits against souls and the Church, as well as a consoling vision of the Archangel Michael thrusting Satan and his legions back down into the abyss of hell. The Pope was naturally shaken up by the experience. After having spoken of it to those around him, he went to his room to compose a prayer of exorcism against the devil. It is a shortened version of this prayer that has become familiar to us as the prayer Pope Leo XIII himself prescribed in the same year for recitation, along with the Marian prayers, after every low Mass throughout the Latin-rite Church. 

The importance of St. Michael in this battle for souls can hardly be overestimated. Although the Church of Christ herself cannot fail, individual souls can be lost in the fierce spiritual battle. We do not know exactly what Jesus granted to Satan: all we know is that “your enemy the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8). We would be fools not to invoke heavenly aid against him. 

Let us daily offer this prayer of Leo XIII “against the wickedness and snares of the devil.” The more we pray God to rebuke him, the more he will be rebuked. St. Michael is granted power over Satan in proportion to the desires of the people of God for the devil’s defeat. If we are lukewarm, Michael’s hand is to some extent bound. If we are on fire against the evil one and his servants, Michael’s hand is ever freer to wage war, and his servants more powerful to assist us. Faith is our own weapon; let us use it. Then the angels, for their part, can use their weapons to the fullest. 

We must not underestimate our role as intercessors before God in the battle against the demons. The prayer of Leo XIII itself indicates it. A prayer devoutly raised to God asking for St. Michael’s intervention may be the difference between a soul entangled and lost, and a soul set free and saved. When we think about how the devil pursues priests and religious above all, we should realize how fitting it is to pray this prayer immediately after Mass, praying not only for the faithful in general, but in particular for the priest who offered that very Mass. If, according to the Apocalypse of St. John, the dragon, the ancient serpent, is in pursuit of the Child and the Woman, will he not be in ceaseless pursuit of every priest and religious who, in their own consecrated states, are the icons in this world of the Woman and her Child?

For whom are these prayers offered up?
For whom is this set of prayers offered up? Is there a general intention that always obtains? The answer is yes. Originally, Leo XIII prescribed them simply for the good of the Church as a whole. In 1934, Pope Pius XI asked that they be prayed especially for the conversion of Russia and for the Church in Russia. I see no reason to regard this request of Pius XI as no longer relevant. The Iron Curtain has fallen, the Soviet Union exists no longer, and the militant Stalinist form of communism is all-but-gone from Russia. In this sense, the countless prayers of our grandmothers and grandfathers after low Mass have borne tremendous fruit, the extent of which we cannot begin to imagine. 

On the other hand, the situation in the former Soviet Union—even if we limit ourselves to the cultural-geographical region of Russia—is, if anything, worse: crime is spinning out of control, corruption of every sort is commonplace, government is totally ineffectual, families are wretchedly poor and getting poorer all the time, the Church is assailed on every side by Western materialism and native Russian Orthodox bigotry. In short, both Russian Catholics and Russian Orthodox are going through a most severe crisis, and they stand in desperate need of our prayers, our fasting, penance, and almsgiving. Now, more than ever, is the time to pray for the Church in Russia, extending our intentions to include the whole former Communist or Soviet bloc of nations—the Church of Eastern Europe. This is the Church for which Pius XI, back in 1934, asked all Catholics to pray, and it is this same Church that needs to be specially remembered now. 

We can have more than one intention when we pray. In fact, the more intentions we have, the better, provided we keep our heads from getting cluttered and distracted. The main point of prayer is union with God. The saints who are closest to God tend to be the ones who pray most, and most effectively, for other people. Let us concentrate first on becoming more perfectly united to God, and then, only in second place, let us be concerned about enormous prayer intentions to take onto our shoulders. All the same, when the Church recommends a prayer intention, we are actually performing an act of loving, filial obedience in making her intention our own. We cannot go wrong praying for the ancient Church of Russia (whether the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church), just as we can never go wrong praying for the Eastern Churches in general, whether united to Rome or separated from her. Let us pray God to grant all the Eastern Churches a true renewal and rediscovery of their own roots, so that they may join themselves ever more closely to the ancient see of St. Peter, the Church of Rome, mother and mistress of all the Churches. Let this be one of our foremost intentions each day after Mass: the reunification of East and West around the common center of the Vicar of Christ.

Peter A. Kwasniewski is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria.

1 The Leonine prayers in their entirety are as follows:

I. Prayers to our Lady

V. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
R. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. (three times)
V. Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

II. Prayer to God on behalf of sinners and the Church

Let us pray. O God, our refuge and our strength, look down with favor upon Thy people who cry out to Thee; and through the intercession of the glorious and immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of blessed Joseph her spouse, of Thy holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the saints, do Thou mercifully and graciously hear the prayers which we pour forth to Thee, for the conversion of sinners and for the freedom and exaltation of Holy Mother Church. Through the same Christ our Lord, Amen.

III. Prayer to St. Michael

St. 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 prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

IV. Invocation to the Sacred Heart

V. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
R. Have mercy on us! (three times)