Prayers for Forgiveness
Forgiveness runs two directions, and both are hard. These prayers cover asking God's mercy for what you have done, and asking for the ability to release someone who hurt you — often the harder of the two.
Several are traditional acts of contrition. Others are plainer, for when you cannot yet mean the whole sentence and can only ask for the willingness to mean it.
35 prayers
- A General Confession
Cranmer's general confession from the Book of Common Prayer (1552), said daily at Morning and Evening Prayer by Anglicans for nearly five…
- 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 Troubled Marriage
A contemporary pastoral prayer for marital difficulty. It follows the biblical pattern of asking God to change the one praying first…
- A Prayer of Renunciation and Recommitment
A plain-language prayer of renunciation, in the pattern that Christians across traditions use when they wish to close the doors that have…
- Act of Contrition
The traditional prayer of repentance, prayed in the confessional and at the end of each day. It moves deliberately from imperfect…
- Confession and Absolution (Lutheran Divine Service)
The confession said at the beginning of the Lutheran Divine Service, descended from Luther's German Mass and the confessional order of the…
- Ezra's Confession
Ezra kneels at the evening sacrifice, ashamed to lift his face, and confesses the sins of the whole people as his own. It is the model of…
- For Breaking the Wall Built Up Around the Heart
A prayer for the interior hardening that follows deep hurt, which spiritual directors and deliverance ministers alike identify as one of…
- Help Me, O Lord, to Be Merciful (St. Faustina)
A prayer from Faustina's Diary in which she asks for mercy in each part of her body, one sense at a time. It has become a standard…
- Jonah's Prayer from the Depths
Prayed from inside the great fish (Jonah 2:2–9), this is Scripture's clearest prayer of someone who ran from God and was rescued anyway.…
- Luther's Evening Prayer
The evening companion to Luther's morning prayer, from the Small Catechism (1529). Luther added a practical instruction after it: "Then go…
- Peace Prayer of St. Francis
Though named for St. Francis, this prayer first appeared in 1912 in the French Catholic magazine La Clochette. Its wide use by St. John…
- Prayer After Confession
A traditional thanksgiving prayed after absolution, while performing one's penance. The Church has always paired sorrow with gratitude:…
- Prayer Before Confession
A traditional preparatory prayer found in Catholic manuals of devotion for centuries. Before examining his conscience, the penitent asks…
- Prayer for Ash Wednesday
The Ash Wednesday collect, said every day of Lent in the Book of Common Prayer and closely matched in the Roman Missal. It is prayed at the…
- Prayer for Breaking Curses of the Occult
A prayer of renunciation aimed at occult involvement, which Scripture consistently treats as a real and forbidden traffic (Deuteronomy…
- Prayer for Forgiveness of Self
A modern prayer for the scrupulous and the self-condemning, built on Romans 8:1. The Christian tradition distinguishes godly sorrow, which…
- Prayer for the Grace of Repentance (St. Anselm)
Attributed to St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), theologian and Doctor of the Church. The prayer asks for the nine fruits of the Spirit…
- Prayer of a Penitent Heart (Psalm 103)
Drawn from Psalm 103, the great psalm of David on the mercy of God. Where Psalm 51 is the cry of the sinner, Psalm 103 is the answer:…
- 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 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 Forgive Those Who Have Wronged Me
A modern prayer of release built directly on the words of Christ from the Cross (Luke 23:34) and the petition of the Our Father.…
- Psalm 143 — Hear My Prayer, O Lord, Give Ear to My Supplications
The seventh and last penitential psalm, prayed at Lauds on Fridays and at the burial of the dead. 'Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in…
- Psalm 25 — Unto Thee, O Lord, Do I Lift Up My Soul
An alphabetical psalm of penitence and guidance, asking God to show his ways and to remember mercy rather than the sins of youth. It is…
- Psalm 32 — Blessed Is He Whose Transgression Is Forgiven
One of the seven penitential psalms, and St. Augustine's favourite — he had it written on the wall beside his deathbed. It describes the…
- Psalm 51 — Have Mercy on Me, O God
Psalm 51, the Miserere, is traditionally ascribed to King David after the prophet Nathan confronted him over Bathsheba and Uriah. It is the…
- Stephen's Dying Prayer
The first martyr dies asking that the sin not be laid to the charge of the men stoning him — with Saul of Tarsus standing by. Prayed in…
- The Act of Love
The Act of Love is the third of the traditional Acts and the most demanding, because it does not stop at loving God: it commits the one…
- The Chaplet of Divine Mercy
The Chaplet of Divine Mercy was given, according to her diary, to St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish sister, in 1935, and spread worldwide…
- The Daily Examen of St. Ignatius
A structured evening review drawn from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1548). Ignatius considered it the one practice a…
- The Fatima Prayer
According to the memoirs of Sister Lúcia, the Virgin Mary taught this prayer to the shepherd children at Fátima on July 13, 1917. It is now…
- The Kyrie Eleison (Threefold Plea for Mercy)
The oldest surviving Greek text in the Latin liturgy, attested in Christian worship from at least the fourth century and likely older.…
- The Our Father
Given by Jesus himself when the disciples asked him how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4), the Our Father is often called the perfect…
- The Prayer of the Thief on the Cross
'Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.' The one deathbed conversion in the Gospels, prayed in Orthodox liturgy before…
- The Publican's Prayer
From the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9–14), where Jesus says it was the publican, not the religious man, who…