In the prayer for the feast of St. Michael (September 29) we ask that the Holy Angels may fulfill the special office entrusted to them of watching faithfully over us upon earth. This feast included together with St. Michael the whole of the heavenly court. A distinct feast of the Guardian Angels originated only at a later date. The Spaniards observed it in the Sixteenth Century and Paul V (September 27, 1608) declared the feast of the Guardian Angels, a feast of the whole Church, and ordered that it should be kept on the first vacant date after the feast of St. Michael. Clement X (1670) assigned it to October 2nd. Leo XIII raised it to the rank of a greater double.

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