Prayers for Protection
This is the largest collection on the site, because asking God for protection is one of the oldest instincts of prayer. Here you will find prayers over a home, over children, before a journey, at nightfall, and against spiritual attack.
Some are single lines meant to be prayed quickly. Others are longer and traditionally prayed daily. Both are here; take whichever fits the moment you are in.
82 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 Collect for Aid Against All Perils
The evening collect of the Book of Common Prayer, drawn from the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary. Written in an age when night meant real…
- 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 Surgery
A contemporary prayer before an operation, closing with Christ's own words from the cross (Luke 23:46), which the Church has prayed at…
- 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…
- A Prayer for Those in Harm's Way
A contemporary prayer for those in dangerous service, in the tradition of the Book of Common Prayer's prayers "For those in the Armed…
- A Prayer for Travellers
The Church has blessed travellers since the earliest centuries, when a journey was genuinely dangerous and often took months. This collect…
- Alone with None but Thee (St. Columba)
Attributed to St. Columba of Iona (521–597), the Irish monk who evangelised western Scotland, and preserved in the Celtic tradition of caim…
- August Queen of the Heavens
A nineteenth-century French prayer, widely circulated with ecclesiastical approval and included in Fr. Ripperger's collection among the…
- Auxilium Christianorum Daily Prayers
Auxilium Christianorum — "Help of Christians" — is an association of the faithful founded by Fr. Chad Ripperger and erected in the Diocese…
- Benediction of Jude
The closing doxology of the Letter of Jude, prayed as a benediction of preservation and praise.
- Binding Prayer (Short Form)
The short binding prayer is the best-known text in the lay deliverance tradition and circulates widely in Catholic prayer books. "Binding"…
- Binding Prayer to Blind the Demons
A petition drawn from a consistent theme in Catholic ascetical literature: demons are creatures, not God, and have no direct access to the…
- Blessing of a Boat and Those at Sea
A blessing for fishing and sailing vessels and for all who work or travel upon the sea.
- 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 a Vehicle
A blessing for cars and other means of transport, asking safe travel for all who use them.
- Blessing of Children
A parent's or minister's blessing over children, echoing Christ's blessing of the little ones.
- Blessing of Water
A blessing of water for sprinkling homes and persons, drawn from the Church's ancient rite.
- Carmelite Invocation
A short binding invocation preserved in the Carmelite tradition and gathered among the lay deliverance prayers by Fr. Chad Ripperger. It…
- Consecration of One's Exterior Goods to the Blessed Virgin Mary
An act of Marian consecration applied specifically to material possessions, a practice recommended in deliverance ministry because…
- Consecration to St. Michael the Archangel
An act of dedication to St. Michael, drawn from the traditional consecration prayer that circulates with the Chaplet of St. Michael and in…
- Epiphany Home Blessing (Blessing of Chalk)
The Epiphany blessing of chalk used to mark the doorway of a home for the new year.
- Evening Prayer of St. Basil the Great
One of the evening prayers of St. Basil the Great (330–379), Archbishop of Caesarea, preserved in the Orthodox prayer book and in the…
- Flower of Carmel (Flos Carmeli)
Composed by St. Simon Stock, English Prior General of the Carmelite Order, around 1251, on the occasion of the vision in which Our Lady…
- 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…
- Let God Arise (Prayer of the Precious Cross)
One of the central protective prayers of the Christian East, prayed at Compline and at the blessing of the cross, and often at bedtime in…
- Litany of St. Michael the Archangel
A traditional litany in honor of the archangel who appears in Daniel 10 and 12 as the guardian of God's people and in Revelation 12 as the…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- Night Prayer (Compline)
Compline is the Church's last prayer of the day, prayed by monks before the great silence since at least the sixth century and codified in…
- Novena to St. Michael the Archangel
St. Michael appears in Daniel, Jude, and the Book of Revelation as the prince of the heavenly host who casts down the dragon. Devotion 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 Every Evil
One of the most widely circulated deliverance prayers in the Catholic world, popularized by Fr. Gabriele Amorth, for many years the chief…
- Prayer Against Retaliation
One of the most practically important prayers in the lay deliverance collection. The consistent counsel of exorcists — Fr. Ripperger and…
- Prayer Against Satan and the Rebellious Angels
Composed by Pope Leo XIII and published in 1890 as part of the Roman Ritual, this text is drawn from the Pope's longer exorcism against…
- Prayer Against Temptation
A prayer for the moment of trial, built around the pattern of Christ's own temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11) and closing with…
- Prayer Before a Journey
The traditional blessing for travellers from the Roman Ritual, prayed before setting out on a long journey or a pilgrimage. It is one of…
- 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 Breaking Occult Ties
Where the previous prayer renounces occult acts, this one addresses what those acts leave behind: the lingering attachments that pastoral…
- 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 Command
The classic lay "prayer of command," rooted in the Lord's own promise that His disciples would cast out demons in His name (Mark 16:17).…
- Prayer of St. Basil the Great Against Evil Spirits
St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea and one of the four great Eastern Doctors of the Church, died in 379. The exorcism prayers…
- Prayer of St. Benedict Against Evil
The words inscribed on the Medal of St. Benedict, whose Latin initials — C S S M L, N D S M D, V R S N S M V, S M Q L I V B — encode this…
- Prayer of Thanksgiving (Coptic Agpeya)
The Prayer of Thanksgiving that opens every hour of the Agpeya, the Coptic Orthodox book of hours, and every Coptic liturgical service. Its…
- 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 Mary, Help of Christians (St. John Bosco)
St. John Bosco (1815-1888), who spent his life among the poor boys of Turin, made Mary Help of Christians the patroness of his Salesian…
- Prayer to My Guardian Angel
A rhymed version of the Latin Angele Dei, attributed in substance to St. Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century and taught to…
- Prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Devotion to the Byzantine icon known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help spread worldwide after Pope Pius IX entrusted it to the Redemptorists in…
- Prayer to Protect the Faculties
A precise prayer reflecting the Catholic anatomy of the soul as it comes down from St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas: intellect, will,…
- Prayer to St. Christopher for Travellers
The name Christopher means 'Christ-bearer', and the legend tells of a giant who ferried travellers across a river and one night carried a…
- 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…
- Prayer to St. Michael (Longer Form)
The longer exorcism prayer to St. Michael composed by Pope Leo XIII in 1890 and later published as a private devotional prayer. The shorter…
- Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel
Composed by Pope Leo XIII in 1886, reportedly after a troubling vision of the trials facing the Church. For decades it was prayed after…
- Prayer to the Precious Blood for Protection
Devotion to the Precious Blood was promoted by St. Gaspar del Bufalo, who founded the Missionaries of the Precious Blood in 1815, and Pope…
- Prayers After Low Mass (Leonine Prayers)
In 1884 Pope Leo XIII ordered that a set of prayers be recited after every Low Mass throughout the Latin Church, adding the Prayer to St.…
- 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 121 — I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes
Psalm 121 is one of the Songs of Ascents, sung by pilgrims climbing the road to Jerusalem, watching the hills for both danger and the first…
- Psalm 23 — The Lord Is My Shepherd
The most beloved of the psalms, attributed to David, who had been a shepherd before he was a king. It is the prayer of the deathbed, the…
- Psalm 35 — Plead My Cause, O Lord
One of the psalms of contention, in which the psalmist hands his defense entirely over to God rather than taking it up himself. The Church…
- Psalm 46 — God Is Our Refuge and Strength
Psalm 46 inspired Martin Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (1529) and has been prayed through plagues, wars, and natural…
- Psalm 91 — He Shall Cover Thee
Psalm 91 is the Church's great prayer of protection. Ancient Jewish tradition called it the "song of plagues," and Christians have prayed…
- 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…
- St. Anthony's Brief (Ecce Crucem Domini)
Known as St. Anthony's Brief, this short formula is attributed to St. Anthony of Padua, who is said to have written it out for a woman…
- 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…
- Stella Caeli Extirpavit
A medieval Franciscan antiphon traditionally prayed during epidemics and associated with the Poor Clares of Coimbra during the plague of…
- Sub Tuum Praesidium (Beneath Thy Protection)
The oldest known prayer addressed to Mary as Theotokos, preserved on a third-century Egyptian papyrus. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and…
- Te Lucis Ante Terminum (Before the Ending of the Day)
The ancient hymn of Compline, in use since at least the seventh century and translated into English by J. M. Neale in 1852. Monks have sung…
- The Armor of God Prayer (Ephesians 6)
A prayer built line by line on Ephesians 6:10-18, the fullest description of spiritual warfare in the New Testament. St. Paul wrote it, by…
- The Chaplet of St. Michael
Based on a private revelation reported by the Portuguese Carmelite Antónia d'Astónaco in the eighteenth century and approved for devotional…
- The Chaplet of the Precious Blood
The Chaplet of the Precious Blood was given to the Church through the Congregation of the Most Precious Blood, founded by St. Gaspar del…
- The Irish Blessing
A traditional Gaelic blessing invoking God's protection and companionship until we meet again.
- The Memorare
Long associated with St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Memorare was popularized in the 17th century by Fr. Claude Bernard, who credited it with…
- The Prayer of Jabez
A two-verse prayer buried in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 4:9–10, which notes simply that "God granted him that which he requested."…
- Vade Retro Satana (Prayer of the Medal of St. Benedict)
These verses are inscribed in abbreviated form on the Jubilee Medal of St. Benedict, one of the Church's most widely used sacramentals. The…