Morning Prayers
Beginning the day with prayer is one of the oldest Christian habits, and it survives because it works. These prayers offer the day to God before it has a chance to take you over.
Most take under a minute. A few are fuller morning devotions from the daily office if you have longer.
26 prayers
- A Collect for Grace
The morning counterpart to "Lighten our darkness," prayed daily at Morning Prayer since 1549 and translated from a collect in the Gelasian…
- A Collect for Peace
One of the fixed collects of Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, translated by Cranmer from an ancient Latin source in the…
- A Prayer Before a Difficult Day
A contemporary pastoral prayer for anticipatory anxiety — the dread that arrives before an exam, a diagnosis, a court date, or a hard…
- A Prayer for Daily Work and Provision
Drawn from the Book of Common Prayer's collect "For Every Man in His Work," this prayer treats ordinary labour as a genuine vocation rather…
- Into Thy Hands (St. Edmund of Abingdon)
A morning commendation by St. Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1240), preserved in medieval English primers and still…
- Jeremiah's Lament: His Mercies Are New Every Morning
From the middle of the book of tears comes the line the Church sings every morning: 'They are new every morning: great is thy…
- Leave Me Alone with God (St. Aidan of Lindisfarne)
A prayer of the Lindisfarne tradition associated with St. Aidan (d. 651), whose island monastery is cut off by the tide twice a day. It has…
- Luther's Morning Prayer
Written by Martin Luther for his Small Catechism (1529) as part of his instructions for how the head of a household should teach the family…
- Morning Offering
Popularized by the Apostleship of Prayer in the 19th century. Its logic is simple and transformative: rather than setting aside a few…
- Morning Offering of the Apostleship of Prayer
The Apostleship of Prayer, founded by French Jesuits in 1844 and now called the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, gave Catholics this…
- 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…
- Morning Prayer of St. Macarius the Great
The first of the morning prayers in the Orthodox prayer book, attributed to St. Macarius the Great (c. 300–391), a father of Egyptian…
- O Heavenly King (Prayer to the Holy Spirit)
The invocation of the Holy Spirit with which Orthodox Christians begin prayer for most of the year, omitted only between Pascha and…
- Offering of the Day (St. Francis de Sales)
An offering from the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Salesian tradition, meant to be prayed at the start of a day already known to…
- Prayer for Humility (St. Philip Neri)
St. Philip Neri, the sixteenth-century 'Apostle of Rome', prayed some version of this every morning; his biographers record the words as…
- Prayer of St. Augustine — Breathe in Me, O Holy Spirit
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) converted after years of restless searching, famously praying, "You have made us for yourself, and our…
- Prayer of St. Benedict Before Work
A prayer of the Benedictine tradition, prayed before the day's work in monasteries that live by 'ora et labora'. Its seven petitions have…
- Prayer of the Optina Elders
Composed at the Optina Monastery in Russia, a center of the Russian spiritual revival of the nineteenth century whose elders counseled…
- Protection Prayer
A short daily prayer of protection, meant to be prayed on rising and kept brief enough to be prayed from memory. It gathers the three…
- 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 63 — My Soul Thirsts for You
From the earliest centuries Psalm 63 was the psalm of Christian morning prayer; St. John Chrysostom records that the Church decreed no day…
- St. Patrick's Breastplate
Known as the Lorica, or breastplate, this prayer is traditionally attributed to St. Patrick in the fifth century, though the text as we…
- The Act of Faith
The Acts of Faith, Hope, and Love are three short prayers corresponding to the theological virtues, formalised in catechisms from the…
- The Benedictus (Song of Zechariah)
The song of Zechariah at the birth of his son John the Baptist (Luke 1:68-79), spoken after nine months of imposed silence. Since at least…
- 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…
- Three Hail Marys Devotion
A short morning and evening devotion promoted by St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn in the thirteenth century and later by St. Alphonsus Liguori.…