When I was a Pentecostal preacher I saw a statue of St. Michael the Archangel at a gift shop. It was the traditional pose: foot on the devil's head, sword raised and ready to strike. I thought: "This is my kind of angel!" From then on I've had a devotion to this heavenly warrior.
I have an Abyssinian (Ethiopia/Eritrea) icon that I mounted myself on some stained wood where he has a flaming sword. It travels with me wherever I go.
I knew about the Chaplet of St. Michael, which is a special way to pray using beads that are similar to a Rosary. Wanting to add this devotion to my spiritual practice I cut out an icon of St. Michael from the Monastery Icons catalog and mounted it to a 2"x1" piece of tree bark. Then I used wooden beads for the rest of the chaplet--nine large for each choir of angels, three small between them for the "Our Father" and four at the end for concluding prayers.
I would like to make a note to my non-catholic readers. Praying to saints or angels and asking for their help is not worship, nor is it necromancy. All saints and holy angels point to Jesus. Why ask for their intercession? Because I need all the help I can get, and who better than those who see the Face of God! Also, look closely at the prayers--they ask for Jesus to give to me the qualities found in each type of angel through the intercession of St. Michael.
My favorite prayer is on the first bead: "By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Seraphim may the Lord make us worthy to burn with the fire of perfect charity. Amen."
Rather than post the whole thing here, I created a PDF file of the devotion I use. Some of the prayers are in Latin since I like to pray that way sometimes. There's also a history of the Chaplet.
http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/corduroy/chaplet-san_miguel.pdf
With so much confusion latelty about angels and what they do it is comforting to have direction from Holy Mother Church on the truth. For more about angels, check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church starting at paragraph #328.
