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Summary
- The Itinerarium, printed in the Roman Breviary for clergy about to travel, asks that “the Angel Raphael” go with travelers so they “return home in peace, health and joy”; its antiphon and the collect recalling Abraham are given in Latin and English.
- Short prayers cover leaving home, driving, flying, storms, cancelled plans, someone else’s journey and arriving safely.
- Tobias 5:21 (Douay-Rheims) gives a parting blessing: “May you have a good journey, and God be with you in your way, and his angel accompany you.”
- The Catholic Encyclopedia calls Saint Christopher a probable third-century martyr about whom “almost nothing certain is known”; his feast left the universal calendar in 1969, and his patronage of travelers is popular devotion.
- The Orthodox rite of blessing for a journey asks Christ to send an angel “as a fellow-traveller,” and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer has a thanksgiving for a safe return.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Exodus 23:20; Psalm 91:11; 121:8; 139:9–10; Mark 4:39), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10 ; and from the Douay-Rheims Bible, Project Gutenberg eBook no. 1581 (Tobias 5:21; 12:15), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581
- Pontificale Romanum, edition revised under Benedict XIV and Leo XIII, “De Itineratione Praelatorum.” Liturgia Latina. http://www.liturgialatina.org/pontificale/103.htm
- Alston, George Cyprian. “Itinerarium.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08255a.htm
- Mershman, Francis. “St. Christopher.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03728a.htm
- Catholic Answers. “Did the Church declare that St. Christopher is a myth?” https://www.catholic.com/qa/did-the-church-declare-that-st-christopher-is-a-myth
- A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and published by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1888. “Angel of God,” p. 54. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. The Rite of Blessing for a Journey, pp. 524–528. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Thanksgivings, “For a Safe Return from a Journey,” p. 53. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
