Is it okay to talk to your guardian angel in your own words?

Yes, in Catholic and Orthodox practice, and Pope Francis encouraged Catholics in 2014 to speak with their angel and ask its advice. Lutherans and most Protestants bring their own words to God and ask him to send his angel.

Is it wrong to pray to angels?

Catholic and Orthodox churches allow asking a guardian angel to pray and help, and forbid worshipping it, the line drawn in Revelation 22:8-9. Most Protestant churches address God alone and ask him to send his angels, following Luther's reading of Colossians 2:18.

What is the shortest prayer to your guardian angel?

The Latin Angele Dei is a single sentence, and its English rhyme is four lines. The OCA prayer book also gives a one-line prayer to Christ that asks for the prayers of "my holy guardian angel."

Do you have to kneel to pray to your guardian angel?

No. Luther's Small Catechism says "kneeling or standing," and the Catholic and Orthodox texts set no required posture for private prayer.

Can you ask your guardian angel to help someone else?

Catholic and Orthodox Christians ask the angel's prayers for others the way they would ask a friend to pray. Lutherans pray to God for that person and ask God to protect them.

When is the feast of the Guardian Angels?

The Catholic Church keeps it on 2 October, according to the Directory on Popular Piety (§215). Pius VI tied his 1795 plenary indulgence for the Angel of God to that day.

Can Jewish people pray to a guardian angel?

Jewish prayer is addressed to God. The Bedtime Shema names four angels around the sleeper but speaks to God, and some rabbis have objected to prayers addressed to angels.

How Do You Pray to Your Guardian Angel, Morning and Night?

Most people pray to their guardian angel with a short fixed prayer said on waking and at bedtime. The best known is the Catholic Angel of God, which begins "Angel of God, my guardian dear."

Churches differ on who hears the request. Catholic and Orthodox Christians speak to the angel directly and ask for its help and prayers, while Lutherans and most other Protestants ask God to send his angel.

So the right words depend on your tradition more than on your mood. The sections below match each traditional prayer to a time of day, set out what each church permits, and show how families teach one to a child.

Quick Facts

Most used prayer: Angel of God (Latin: Angele Dei), four rhyming lines in English
Usual times: On waking and at bedtime, changing "this day" to "this night"
Earliest traced source: Verses by Reginald of Canterbury, a monk who lived until after 1109
Orthodox bedtime form: The eleventh prayer before sleep, headed To the Guardian Angel
Lutheran form: A request to God: "Let Thy holy angel be with me" (Luther, 1529)
Catholic limit: Ask the angel's help, never worship it, and do not give it a private name

How do you pray to your guardian angel?

Choose one short prayer your church uses, say it at the same two moments each day, and keep any added request plain. In Catholic and Orthodox practice the prayer speaks to the angel as a companion God has given, then turns back to God at the end.

Pope Francis described the habit in ordinary terms in his homily for the feast of the Guardian Angels on 2 October 2014.

"Do I bid him good day in the morning? Do I tell him: 'guard me while I sleep?'"

Those two questions match the pattern the older prayer books set.

A greeting when the day starts and a request for keeping when it ends take less than a minute together.

A daily guardian angel prayer in five steps

The order follows Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran household prayer; your own church's rule takes precedence.

Choose the words
Input
One prayer your church already uses
Action
Angel of God for Catholics, the guardian angel prayers for Orthodox, Luther's prayers for Lutherans
Result
You know who is being addressed
Fix the times
Input
Getting up and turning out the light
Action
Tie the prayer to those two actions
Result
The habit no longer depends on remembering
Say it once
Input
The fixed text
Action
Pray it slowly without restarting over a stumbled word
Result
The prayer ends when its words end
Add one request
Input
A single concern in plain words
Action
For example: help me drive carefully in the rain tonight
Result
Your own need is spoken without altering the inherited text
Close toward God
Input
Amen, the sign of the cross, or the Glory Be
Action
End the way your tradition ends
Result
The prayer finishes with God, as every traditional form does

Personal words fit every tradition covered here, as long as they go to the one that tradition allows you to address. For Catholics the main limit is naming: the Church asks people to call on "my guardian angel" rather than a name received in meditation, which is why learning your angel's name is disputed.

Luther's household instructions add a useful ending.

After the morning prayer he tells the reader to "go to your work with joy," and after the evening prayer to "go to sleep promptly and cheerfully."

What does the Angel of God prayer say, and who wrote it?

The Latin original of this traditional prayer is one sentence, printed in the Vatican's Compendium of the Catechism: "Angele Dei, qui custos es mei, me tibi commissum pietate superna, illumina, custodi, rege et guberna. Amen."

It asks the angel to enlighten, guard, rule, and govern the one "entrusted to you by heavenly love." The English rhyme in the Raccolta, the Church's official collection of indulgenced prayers from 1807 to 1952, turns this into four lines: "Angel of God, my guardian dear, / To whom His love commits me here, / Ever this day be at my side, / To light and guard, to rule and guide."

Many modern prayer cards print "God's love" in place of "His love."

One word changes at bedtime.

English books give "ever this night" for the evening, and Latin versions insert hodie (today) or hac nocte (tonight) before the four verbs.

For centuries the prayer circulated under the name of Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), because it appeared in collections of his works. Those copies were added after his death, and scholars now trace the words to Reginald of Canterbury, a monk of St Augustine's Abbey who lived until after 1109.

Reginald's verse Life of St Malchus contains a longer prayer that opens "Angele, qui meus es custos pietate superna, me tibi commissum serva, tueare, guberna." The short prayer shares its opening address, the phrase pietate superna, and the closing verb guberna, so it is usually described as drawn from Reginald's lines rather than copied from them.

How the Angel of God became a morning and evening habit

Dates come from the Raccolta, papal documents, and the Directory on Popular Piety listed in the sources.

2 October 1795
Pius VI grants 100 days' indulgence for each devout recitation
Also a plenary indulgence on the Guardian Angels feast for those who said it morning and evening all year
15 May 1821
Pius VII confirms the grants and adds a monthly plenary indulgence
Daily recitation for a month becomes the condition
1 January 1967
Paul VI's Indulgentiarum Doctrina ends counting partial indulgences in days
The "100 days" printed on old cards no longer applies
2001
The Directory on Popular Piety calls the Angele Dei "especially popular"
Confirms its place in morning and evening family prayer

The 1795 grant explains why the morning-and-evening habit spread so widely in Catholic homes. Pius VI rewarded exactly that pattern, and the habit outlasted the indulgence reform of 1967.

Which guardian angel prayer fits the morning, bedtime, and the hours between?

Each tradition already places its angel prayers at a time of day, so the simplest choice is the prayer your church sets for that moment.

Guardian angel prayers by time of day
Moment	Catholic	Orthodox (OCA prayer book)	Lutheran
On waking	Angel of God, "ever this day"	Tenth morning prayer, To the Guardian Angel	Luther's morning prayer to the Father, asking "Let Thy holy angel be with me"
At bedtime	Angel of God, "ever this night"	Eleventh prayer before sleep, To the Guardian Angel	Luther's evening prayer, with the same angel line
During the day	A brief greeting to the angel, as Pope Francis suggested	"Through the prayers ... of my holy guardian angel ... save me, a sinner"	A short request to God in your own words

The morning forms look ahead to work and temptation. The OCA's tenth morning prayer asks the angel to "protect me throughout the present day," and a morning angel meditation can use one line of it to carry a person from waking into the first task.

Bedtime forms add forgiveness for the day just lived.

The Catholic and Lutheran versions stay short, while the Orthodox bedtime rule sets the angel prayer inside a long sequence explained in the next section.

Judaism has a bedtime text that places angels around the sleeper, though it is not a prayer to a guardian angel. The Bedtime Shema sets four named archangels on four sides and speaks to God throughout, and its use in evening angel meditation keeps that address to God intact.

Between the fixed times, a single line does the work.

The OCA prayer book gives one for use through the day: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, through the prayers of thy most pure Mother, of my holy guardian angel ... and of all the saints: save me, a sinner."

That line speaks to Christ and names the angel as one who prays alongside the believer. It sits between the Catholic greeting to the angel and the Lutheran request to God.

Before travel, surgery, or a frightening night, many Christians of every church use Psalm 91:11, "he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." Fuller protection prayers for home, travel, and conflict follow the same order, asking God first.

What does the Orthodox prayer before sleep ask of the guardian angel?

It asks forgiveness first and protection second.

In the Orthodox Church in America's Prayers Before Sleep, the eleventh prayer begins: "Angel of Christ, my holy guardian and protector of my soul and body: forgive me for all the sins I have committed this day."

It goes on to ask the angel to "deliver me from all the wiles of the enemy," and then to pray that the speaker be found worthy of the mercy of the Holy Trinity, the Mother of God, and the saints. The angel is asked to pray for the sinner, and the grace comes from God.

Confessing the day's sins to the angel rests on a belief the morning form states outright: sin grieves the guardian. That prayer asks forgiveness for "all the sorrows I have caused thee every day of my life."

The same bedtime rule also prays to God about the angel. Its fifth prayer asks God to "send thy guardian angel to protect and keep me from every evil," so one evening can hold both kinds of prayer, first to God and later to the angel.

Order matters here.

The guardian angel prayer comes eleventh, after prayers to the Father, to Christ, to the Holy Spirit, and two to the Mother of God.

Most Orthodox Christians keep a prayer rule agreed with their priest. A newcomer who wants only the guardian angel prayer at night can ask whether to say it alone or within a shorter rule, since the parish usually has a preferred translation.

Can Protestants pray to angels, or only ask God to send one?

Most Protestant churches pray to God alone and ask God to send his angels. Luther's evening prayer in the Small Catechism (1529) is the model many Lutheran households still use:

The morning prayer closes with the same angel line, word for word, after thanking God for keeping the speaker "this night from all harm and danger." The request for angelic protection is all there; only the one being spoken to has changed.

Luther gave his reason in the Smalcald Articles (1537). Although "the angels in heaven pray for us," he wrote, it does not follow "that we should invoke and adore the angels," because "such honor belongs alone to God."

Protestant readers also cite Colossians 2:18, which warns against "worshipping of angels." They take it as a reason not to address angels in prayer at all, while Catholic and Orthodox readers take it as a warning against worship, which they keep separate from asking an angel for help.

Anglican prayer follows the Lutheran direction.

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer collect for Saint Michael and All Angels asks God that "as thy holy Angels alway do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth."

A Protestant who wants an angel's protection therefore has a ready prayer: ask God, in Luther's words or your own, to let his angel be with you. Whether each person has one assigned angel is a separate question, and Christian guardian angel teaching answers it differently from church to church.

What limits do Catholic and Orthodox churches set on prayer to an angel?

Both churches allow prayer to the guardian angel and both forbid worshipping it.

The line comes from Revelation 22:8-9, where John falls down "to worship before the feet of the angel" and is told, "See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant ... worship God."

Catholic teaching states the belief behind the prayer in Catechism paragraph 336: "From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession." Intercession is the working word, since the angel is asked to pray and help as God's servant.

The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001) says the Church "has recourse to their prompt intercession" and, in its night prayer, "implores God to send his Angels at the end of the day to protect the faithful as they sleep" (§215). Catholic prayer therefore runs in both directions: to the angel, and to God about the angel.

The same document names two mistakes in §217. The first is reading daily life "so as to ascribe all setbacks to the Devil and all success to the Guardian Angels," which turns a prayer into a running score of good and bad luck.

The second is naming.

"The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture."

Orthodox prayer books draw the same line through their order and wording instead of a separate rulebook. The angel is asked to "pray to the Lord on my behalf," and its prayers follow prayers to God in both the morning and bedtime rules.

What each tradition allows in prayer about the guardian angel
Question	Catholic	Orthodox	Lutheran
Speak to the angel directly?	Yes, as in the Angele Dei	Yes, in the morning and bedtime prayers	No; ask God to send his angel
Ask the angel to pray for you?	Yes; Catechism 336 speaks of intercession	Yes: "Pray to the Lord on my behalf"	Rejected as invocation (Smalcald Articles II.2)
Give the angel a personal name?	Discouraged (Directory §217)	The OCA prayers use no name	Not practiced
Main texts	Catechism 336; Directory §§215-217	OCA Morning Prayers and Prayers Before Sleep	Small Catechism; Smalcald Articles

Read across, the three traditions agree that worship belongs to God and that angels serve people at God's command. They part ways on one point: whether a Christian may speak to the angel as well as to God.

How do you teach a guardian angel prayer to a child?

Start with the rhyming Angel of God or a one-line bedtime request, say it together at the same point in the bedtime routine, and explain one word at a time. The Directory on Popular Piety (§216) notes that the Angele Dei "is often recited by families at morning and evening prayers," so home is where most children first hear it.

Christian teaching on children and angels starts with Matthew 18:10, where Jesus says of "these little ones" that "in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father." Because Catechism 336 begins the angel's care in infancy, Catholic parents often make this a child's first prayer.

The English rhyme was built for memory.

It has four short lines, paired rhymes (dear and here, side and guide), and four verbs a parent can explain in a child's words: light means help me see what is right, guard means keep me safe, rule means help me choose, and guide means show me the way.

Lutheran families have a child's form of their own.

Luther wrote the Small Catechism for the head of each household to teach, so its short evening prayer was meant from the start to be said with children.

German-speaking homes also kept an older bedtime rhyme, "Abends, will ich schlafen gehn, vierzehn Engel um mich stehn" (at night when I go to sleep, fourteen angels stand around me). It was printed in the folk collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn in the early 1800s and became the Evening Prayer duet in Humperdinck's opera Hänsel und Gretel (1893).

Say it together first. A child learns the rhythm by hearing it nightly before saying it alone.
Keep one text. Changing only "this day" to "this night" gives a morning and a bedtime version without a new prayer to learn.
Explain slowly. A child who asks what "rule" means is learning the prayer, not interrupting it.
Leave out threats. The Catechism describes the angel as a "protector and shepherd," so telling a child the angel is watching to catch misbehavior teaches something the tradition does not say.

A child afraid of the dark can name the fear inside the prayer: "Angel of God, stay with me tonight when I feel scared." Night fears that keep returning are still worth raising with a pediatrician, because a prayer can settle a bedtime without treating anxiety.