Prayers for Family
These prayers cover family as it actually is: the household as a whole, a marriage under strain, a parent's worry, an estranged sibling.
Several are written to be prayed together out loud, which is often the point — praying with family changes it in ways praying about them does not.
48 prayers
- A Blessing for a New Home
Adapted from the ancient Visita quaesumus collect used at Compline and in the Roman Ritual's blessing of a house, and preserved in the Book…
- A Prayer for a Difficult Family Relationship
A contemporary pastoral prayer on Christ's command to love and pray for those who wound us (Matthew 5:44). The Christian tradition…
- A Prayer for a Marriage
This prayer comes from the marriage rite of the Book of Common Prayer, whose central petitions Thomas Cranmer composed in 1549 and later…
- A Prayer for a Newborn Child
A prayer of thanksgiving and blessing at a birth, closing with the Aaronic Blessing of Numbers 6. Christians have blessed newborns from the…
- A Prayer for a Sick Child
A contemporary parents' prayer at a child's sickbed, echoing the pleas of Jairus and the Canaanite woman in the Gospels — both parents who…
- A Prayer for a Wedding Day
A nuptial blessing in the tradition of the Roman Rite and the Book of Common Prayer marriage service, both of which frame marriage as a…
- A Prayer for Adult Children
A contemporary pastoral prayer in the tradition of St. Monica, who prayed seventeen years for her son Augustine. It is written for parents…
- A Prayer for Children
A prayer for the young and for those raising them, adapted from the Book of Common Prayer's prayers "For Young Persons" and "For the Care…
- A Prayer for Expectant Parents
A prayer for pregnancy drawing on Psalm 139:13–16. The Church has long prayed for safe childbirth — the Roman Ritual, the Book of Common…
- A Prayer for Families
This collect, "For Families," entered the Book of Common Prayer in the American revision of 1928 and draws on older English collects going…
- A Prayer for the Protection of Children
A contemporary parents' prayer of protection, drawing on Christ's words in Matthew 18:10 that the angels of children "always see the face…
- A Prayer for the Protection of the Home
A contemporary prayer of household protection, closing with Psalm 4:8. The blessing of a dwelling is one of the oldest Christian domestic…
- Blessing for a Birthday
A blessing of thanksgiving for another year of life and a prayer for the year to come.
- Blessing for a Wedding Anniversary
A blessing for a married couple giving thanks for the years past and asking grace for the years ahead.
- Blessing of a Christmas Crib
The blessing of the Christmas crib from the Book of Blessings, said in churches and homes when the nativity scene is set up — a custom…
- Blessing of a Christmas Tree
A household blessing of the Christmas tree and its lights as a sign of Christ the Light.
- Blessing of a Home
The blessing of a house, used in Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican practice when a family moves in and at Epiphany, when the door is marked…
- Blessing of an Expectant Mother
A blessing for a mother during pregnancy, asking protection for her and for her unborn child.
- Blessing of Children
A parent's or minister's blessing over children, echoing Christ's blessing of the little ones.
- Blessing of the Advent Wreath
The blessing of the Advent wreath and its candles at the beginning of the Advent season.
- Collect for Christmas Day
The Prayer Book collect for the Nativity, said throughout the twelve days of Christmas. It moves from Christ's taking our nature to our…
- Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Acts of consecration to Mary's Immaculate Heart grew from nineteenth-century devotion and received new worldwide prominence after Fátima.…
- David's Prayer: Who Am I, O Lord God
David sits before the Lord after being told his house will endure, and can only ask, 'Who am I, O Lord GOD? and what is my house?' It is…
- Epiphany Home Blessing (Blessing of Chalk)
The Epiphany blessing of chalk used to mark the doorway of a home for the new year.
- Grace Before Meals
The Benedicite table blessing is one of the most widely prayed Christian prayers in the world, said before meals in Catholic homes for many…
- Hannah's Prayer
Prayed by Hannah after years of infertility and the birth of Samuel (1 Samuel 2:1–8). Its themes of reversal — the lowly lifted, the…
- Litany of St. Joseph
Approved for public use by Pope St. Pius X in 1909, this litany gathers the traditional titles of St. Joseph found in patristic and…
- Longer Form of the Binding Prayer
The expanded form of the binding prayer, prayed when a longer and more deliberate act is called for. Its distinctive feature is the closing…
- Morning Prayer (John Calvin, Geneva)
From the Geneva service book Calvin prepared for the Reformed congregations of the city, which printed prayers for households as well as…
- Novena to Saint Anne
Prayed for nine consecutive days, usually leading up to St. Anne's feast on July 26. Devotion to the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary is…
- Novena to St. Joseph
St. Joseph has been invoked as patron of workers, of families, and of a peaceful death since the Middle Ages, and was declared Patron of…
- Novena to St. Monica
St. Monica (c. 331–387) prayed and wept for seventeen years over her brilliant, dissolute son Augustine, following him from North Africa to…
- Perimeter Prayer
A prayer for the home, drawn from the ancient Christian practice of blessing a dwelling and marking its boundaries — a custom preserved in…
- Prayer Against Retaliation
One of the most practically important prayers in the lay deliverance collection. The consistent counsel of exorcists — Fr. Ripperger and…
- Prayer for Protection Against Curses, Harm and Accidents
A broad prayer of temporal protection, joining two petitions the Church has always kept together: shelter from the malice of the enemy and…
- Prayer for the Use of Holy Water and Blessed Salt
Holy water and blessed salt are sacramentals — objects blessed by the Church to dispose the faithful to receive grace — and their use in…
- Prayer of Authority (For Spouse and Children)
Catholic teaching on deliverance rests on the principle that authority follows office: a bishop holds authority over his diocese, a pastor…
- Prayer of Forgiveness for Family Wounds
A modern prayer of intergenerational forgiveness, drawing on Psalm 68:6 and the biblical theme that both blessing and sin travel through…
- Prayer of St. Monica for a Wayward Child
St. Monica prayed for the conversion of her son Augustine for nearly thirty years. Her patronage of mothers of wayward children rests on…
- Prayer to Break the Freemasonic Curse
The appendix of Deliverance Prayers: For Use by the Laity provides a prayer of renunciation for Masonic involvement, a subject on which the…
- Prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe
A widely used prayer associated with St. John Paul II's entrustment of the Americas to Our Lady of Guadalupe. The devotion began with the…
- Prayer to Remove Generational Spirits
A prayer addressing what deliverance ministers call generational or ancestral influence — the observation, found in Exodus 20:5 and Exodus…
- Prayer to St. Anne
St. Anne, honored by tradition as the mother of the Blessed Virgin, has been venerated since at least the sixth century in the East and…
- Prayer to St. Joseph (To Thee, O Blessed Joseph)
Pope Leo XIII published this prayer with his 1889 encyclical Quamquam Pluries and asked that it be added to the Rosary during October. Its…
- Sealing Prayer of Protection
A short "sealing" prayer that a lay person may pray over himself and those under his lawful authority — spouse, children, household. It…
- The Chaplet of St. Joseph
The chaplet honors St. Joseph in fifteen groups, echoing the traditional Seven Joys and Seven Sorrows of the foster-father of Jesus.…
- The Common Table Prayer
The best-known table grace in Lutheran and wider German-American Protestant households, appearing in print by the eighteenth century and…
- The Song of Hannah (Canticle)
Hannah's thanksgiving after the birth of Samuel, the model on which Mary's Magnificat is built: the bows of the mighty broken, the hungry…