Guardian Angel Prayer: Text, Origin and the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels

At the child’s bedside, just before the light goes out, many families still say a little verse today: in German-speaking lands it is “O heiliger Schutzengel mein”, “O holy Guardian Angel mine”. Guardian Angel prayers are among the first prayers a Catholic child learns, and many adults go on praying them all their lives. This guide gives you the Latin Angele Dei with its traditional English form, the children’s verses from a German prayer book of 1905, the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas on the guardian angels and the feast on 2 October.

What are the words of the Guardian Angel Prayer?

The classic Guardian Angel Prayer is the Angele Dei, in its traditional English form: “Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.” It is prayed in the morning and in the evening.

Angele Dei, qui custos es mei, me tibi commissum pietate superna hodie (vel hac nocte) illumina, custodi, rege et guberna. Amen.

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this day (or night) be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

Latin: Preces et pia opera, Rome 1952, no. 452. English: the traditional form. The German version: Sammlung von Gebeten und frommen Werken, für welche die Päpste heilige Ablässe verliehen haben, translated by Michael Haringer, 2nd edition, Regensburg 1865, second appendix, morning prayer p. 62.

The Latin prayer has four petitions: illumina, “enlighten”, custodi, “guard”, rege, “direct”, and guberna, “govern”. In the morning one says hodie, “today”, in the evening hac nocte, “this night”. In German-speaking countries the prayer is said in the version from the translation of the Roman collection of indulgences by the Redemptorist Michael Haringer, which appeared in 1865 as the only German edition approved by the Congregation of Indulgences. There it stands in the morning prayer and once again in the evening prayer.

Which Guardian Angel prayers are there for children?

For children there are rhyming Guardian Angel prayers that are easy to remember. In German the best known begins “O heiliger Schutzengel mein, laß mich dir anbefohlen sein”, “O holy Guardian Angel mine, let me be commended to thee”. Joseph Deharbe’s little prayer book “Manna” gives it in 1905 for morning and evening.

O holy Guardian Angel mine!
Let me be commended to thee!
In all my needs stand by me
And keep me free from sin.
This night, I beg of thee,
Protect and keep me. Amen.

Joseph Deharbe SJ: Manna oder Gebetbüchlein für die katholische Schuljugend, Regensburg: Pustet 1905, evening prayer p. 16 (translated from the German)

In the morning the fifth line reads “This day, I beg of thee” (p. 5). Deharbe places the longer verse at the end of the morning and evening prayers, before the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Creed. Among the little ejaculatory prayers he gives on p. 13 an even shorter verse, “To the holy Guardian Angel”:

Holy Guardian Angel mine!
Let me be commended to thee:
That my heart, from sin set free,
Ever pleasing to God may be.

Deharbe, Manna, Regensburg 1905, p. 13 (translated from the German)

Both verses suit children who do not yet know the Angele Dei by heart. You will find the basic prayers in full in our guide to the Rosary with all its prayers.

What is a guardian angel?

A guardian angel is an angel whom God has given to an individual person as a guardian. According to St Thomas Aquinas, he is to direct that person towards the good, enlighten him and keep him from the snares of the evil spirits. The teaching rests on Matthew 18:10.

Our Lord himself says of the children: “See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 18:10, Douay-Rheims). Allioli remarks on this verse that the teaching rests on this and other passages and on the tradition of the Fathers, “that every man has his own guardian angel appointed by God, who assists him from birth until death” (translated from the German). Psalm 90 says: Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis, “For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways” (Ps 90:11).

Thomas Aquinas explains why man needs this guardianship. Free will can indeed avoid evil “to some extent”, but not sufficiently, because man is weakened by many passions (S. th. I, q. 113, a. 1). That is why the guardianship of the angels is necessary to man. That each individual has his own angel Thomas grounds in God’s providence for every single, imperishable soul (a. 2). According to Thomas, the guardianship of whole nations belongs to higher angels; Scripture calls the Archangel Michael “one of the chief princes” (Dan 10:13; a. 3).

From what age does a person have a guardian angel?

According to the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas, a person has his guardian angel from birth, not only from baptism. He appeals to St Jerome: every soul has from its birth an angel for its protection. This guardianship lasts as long as man is a pilgrim on earth.

Thomas knows two opinions. Some said the angel is assigned to a person at baptism, others at birth. Jerome approves the second, “and rightly so”: what man receives as a Christian begins with baptism, for instance the reception of the Sacrament of the Altar. But what belongs to him as a rational creature he receives as soon as he obtains this nature by birth, and to this belongs the guardianship of the angels (S. th. I, q. 113, a. 5).

That is why the unbaptised also have a guardian angel (a. 4). After death the guardianship ends. Whoever has reached the goal has in heaven an angel who reigns with him; whoever is lost has in hell a demon who punishes him (a. 4).

“Magna est dignitas animarum, ut unaquaeque habeat, ab ortu nativitatis, in custodiam sui Angelum delegatum.” Our translation: Great is the dignity of souls, that each one has, from its birth, an angel appointed especially to guard it.

St Jerome on Mt 18, quoted by St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 113, a. 2

Does your guardian angel leave you when you sin?

According to Thomas Aquinas, the guardian angel never leaves a person entirely, not even in sin. But by God’s decree he permits that the person should undergo a trial or fall into sin. Whoever is lost perishes not through the negligence of the angel but through his own malice.

Thomas writes: Angelus custos nunquam totaliter dimittit hominem, sed ad aliquid interdum eum dimittit, in our translation: “The guardian angel never lets a man go altogether, but at times lets him go in some respect” (S. th. I, q. 113, a. 6). Already in article 1 it is said that men can turn their backs on the inspirations of the good angels just as they can on the natural inclination to the good. The angel does not act like a protective shield; he enlightens and directs. Whether man follows depends on his free will. The Guardian Angel Prayer therefore asks for precisely what the angel does: to enlighten, to guard, to direct, to govern.

When is the Feast of the Guardian Angels?

On 2 October the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, in the 1962 Roman Missal a feast of the third class with its own Mass. Pope Paul V added it to the general calendar in 1608 as an optional feast; Clement X prescribed it for the whole Church on 2 October.

The Mass of 2 October brings together the passages of Scripture on the guardian angels. The Lesson is Exodus 23:20–23: Ecce ego mittam Angelum meum, qui praecedat te, et custodiat in via, in our translation: “Behold, I will send my Angel, who shall go before thee and keep thee on the way”. The Gradual sings Psalm 90:11 f., and the Gospel is Matthew 18:1–10. The Collect reads:

Deus, qui ineffabili providentia sanctos Angelos tuos ad nostram custodiam mittere dignaris: largire supplicibus tuis; et eorum semper protectione defendi, et aeterna societate gaudere.

O God, who in thine unspeakable providence dost vouchsafe to send thy holy Angels to guard us: grant to thy suppliants that they may ever be defended by their protection and rejoice in their eternal fellowship.

Missale Romanum 1962, 2 October, Collect. Our translation.

The details on Paul V and Clement X follow the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910. According to it, Leo XIII raised the feast on 5 April 1883 to a feast of higher rank (duplex maius). The same source reports that in Germany and in many other places it was then kept, by papal privilege, on the first Sunday of September.

Is there an indulgence attached to the Guardian Angel Prayer?

According to the official collection Preces et pia opera (“Prayers and Pious Works”) of 1952, an indulgence of three hundred days is attached to the Guardian Angel Prayer Angele Dei. Whoever prays it daily for a month can gain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.

Under no. 452 the collection also lists a plenary indulgence on the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels for all who have often prayed the prayer morning and evening in the course of the year, and a plenary indulgence at the hour of death. This is gained by one who has often said the prayer during life, has confessed and received Holy Communion or is at least contrite, invokes the Name of Jesus with the lips or in the heart, and patiently accepts death from the hand of God.

Under the 1917 Code of Canon Law, an indulgence attached to a prescribed prayer holds good in any language, provided the translation has been confirmed as faithful by the Church (CIC 1917, can. 934 § 2). Haringer’s translation bears on its title page the note that it is the “only translation approved by the Holy Congregation of Indulgences in Rome and declared authentic” (translated from the German).

According to the preliminary notes of the collection, the usual conditions for the other plenary indulgences are sacramental confession, Holy Communion, a visit to a church or public oratory, and a prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father. As its origin the collection names the brief of Pius VI of 2 October 1795, supplemented by decrees of 1796, 1821 and 1935.

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Frequently asked questions about the Guardian Angel Prayer