Chaplet of St. Michael

Devotions

A nine-salutation prayer honoring the nine choirs of angels under St. Michael’s patronage, traced to a reported eighteenth-century vision and approved by Pope Pius IX in 1851.

The Chaplet of St. Michael is a devotion of nine salutations, one for each traditional choir of angels, followed by additional prayers honoring St. Michael the Archangel and asking his protection. Catholic tradition traces its origin to a Portuguese Carmelite nun, commonly named Antonia d’Astonac, who reported that St. Michael appeared to her around the mid-eighteenth century and asked to be honored with nine such invocations; this account rests on pious tradition rather than independently documented historical record. Pope Pius IX approved the chaplet’s prayers and attached indulgences to it in 1851, a century after the reported vision, and it remains a popular devotion invoking St. Michael’s protection against evil.

Quick Facts

Category: Holy Angels — Angelic Devotions
Origin: Traced by pious tradition to a reported eighteenth-century vision of St. Michael to a Portuguese Carmelite nun, commonly named Antonia d’Astonac; approved and indulgenced by Pope Pius IX in 1851
Feast: Prayed year-round; especially associated with September 29
Church status: An approved and indulgenced Catholic devotion; the papal act approved the prayer text and practice, not a formal doctrinal ruling on the underlying eighteenth-century vision
Private revelation: The chaplet’s origin story rests on pious tradition from long before the Church’s current norms for evaluating alleged private revelations; Catholics may use the chaplet without needing to affirm the vision as historically verified

What Is This Devotion?

The Chaplet of St. Michael is a structured prayer of nine salutations, each honoring one of the traditional nine choirs of angels and asking that choir’s intercession, commonly followed by additional Our Fathers and closing prayers honoring St. Michael by name. Devotees pray it seeking St. Michael’s protection against evil and the intercession of the whole angelic host, making it one of the more elaborate angel-focused devotions in Catholic popular piety.

Origin and History

Catholic devotional literature traces the chaplet to a Portuguese Carmelite nun, commonly identified as Antonia d’Astonac, who reported that St. Michael appeared to her, reportedly around 1751, asking that he be honored through nine invocations corresponding to the nine choirs of angels. Sources vary slightly on the exact year, and little independently verifiable biographical detail about the nun survives beyond the origin story itself, so this account is best understood as pious tradition passed down through devotional publications rather than a documented historical record.

What is better documented is the chaplet’s formal approval: Pope Pius IX approved the prayers and attached indulgences to their recitation in 1851, roughly a century after the reported vision. Like many older indulgence grants, the specific terms attached to the chaplet were later reorganized by the Church’s broader twentieth-century reform of the indulgence system under the revised Enchiridion Indulgentiarum. Some popular literature attaches additional promises to the chaplet beyond this approval; readers should treat any such claims as devotional tradition rather than a guarantee, consistent with the Church’s general caution against presenting sacramentals as automatically securing a fixed outcome.

Catholic Theology

The chaplet’s theology draws on Scripture’s picture of Michael as God’s champion against evil — the archangel who leads the heavenly forces against the dragon in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 12:7–9) — and on Ephesians’ image of the Christian life as spiritual armor against unseen forces (Ephesians 6:10–12). Praying for protection through Michael’s intercession fits within ordinary Catholic teaching on the reality of spiritual struggle and the help of angels; it is not a claim to magical protection but an act of trust that God provides real angelic assistance to those who ask.

How to Practice It

Pray the nine salutations, one for each traditional choir of angels, asking that choir’s angels join in praising God and protecting the one praying.
Add the customary opening and closing prayers that most printed versions of the chaplet include.
Use ordinary prayer beads or simply count on your fingers; no specially blessed chaplet is doctrinally required, though many are sold as sacramentals.
Receive the chaplet’s reported eighteenth-century origin as pious tradition, not a claim requiring belief.

Associated Prayers

When It’s Observed

The chaplet has no fixed day and may be prayed at any time, though many Catholics pray it with particular devotion around September 29, the shared feast of Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.

Church Status

Pope Pius IX’s 1851 act gives the chaplet solid institutional standing as an approved, indulgenced Catholic devotion. That approval concerns the prayer text and its devotional use; it is not the same as a formal Church declaration on the historical authenticity of the reported eighteenth-century vision behind it, a distinction the Church’s modern norms for evaluating alleged private revelations make explicit for cases examined today.

Common Misconceptions

“The Church has formally declared that St. Michael really appeared to Antonia d’Astonac exactly as the traditional story describes.”

No such formal declaration exists. Pope Pius IX’s 1851 act approved and indulgenced the chaplet’s prayers for devotional use; it was not, and was never presented as, a doctrinal ruling on the historicity of the eighteenth-century vision behind the chaplet’s origin story, which today would fall under a different and more rigorous kind of Vatican review than existed in the 1850s.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the nine salutations of the Chaplet of St. Michael?

Each salutation honors one of the traditional nine choirs of angels in turn — Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels — asking that choir’s intercession through St. Michael. See this site’s prayer page for the full traditional text and structure.

Who was Antonia d’Astonac?

Catholic tradition identifies her as a Portuguese Carmelite nun of the eighteenth century to whom St. Michael reportedly appeared. Beyond the chaplet’s own origin story, little independently documented biographical detail about her has survived in accessible sources, so specific claims about her life should be treated with caution.

Did a pope ever officially approve this chaplet?

Yes. Pope Pius IX approved the chaplet and attached indulgences to it in 1851, about a century after the reported vision. A later, Church-wide reform of the indulgence system in the twentieth century reorganized how such older grants are catalogued.