Even if your little patch of Christendom veers away from praying to the saints, we can all admit we could stand to pray more like them.
One year we set up a 24/7 prayer room to that end. People signed up to pray in one hour increments. One of the stations featured a fan file of these half-page size “prayers of the saints” (printed in more varied and attractive fonts and formats than my lil’ ol’ blog can muster), a few simple drawing and binding materials (card stock, binder rings, cord or ribbon, and a hole punch) and this invitation:
Read through the prayer cards in the file.
Do any give words to what is in your heart?
Are there any you would like to pray regularly and make your own?
Collect those that speak to you or speak for you
and bind them into a personal prayer book to take with you.
Make it as simple or elaborate as you like.
Use ribbon, glue or binder rings; illuminate it with your own illustrations.
There are blank cards for writing your own prayers.
Prayer cards:
May the Light of Lights come
To my dark heart from Thy place;
May the Spirit’s wisdom come
To my heart’s tablet from my Saviour.
Be the peace of the Spirit mine this night,
Be the peace of the Son mine this night,
Be the peace of the Father mine this night,
The peace of all peace be mine this night,
Each morning and evening of my life.
– Celtic Traditional[1]
O Lord, I have heard of your renown,
and I stand in awe, O Lord,
of your work.
In our own time revive it;
in our own time make it known;
in wrath may you remember mercy.
- Habakkuk 3:2
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As the rain hides the stars, as the autumn mist hides the hills, as the clouds veil the blue of the sky, so the dark happenings of my lot hide the shining of thy face from me. Yet, if I may hold thy hand in the darkness, it is enough, since I know, that though I may stumble in my going, Thou dost not fall. – Scottish Gaelic Traditional[2]
Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures – I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence, For you are my Father. – Charles de Foucauld[3] |
Come Lord Jesus,
take away scandals from Your kingdom which is my soul,
and reign there.
You alone have the right.
For greediness comes to claim a throne within me;
haughtiness and self-assertion would rule over me;
pride would be my king;
luxury says, “I will reign”;
ambition, detraction, envy and anger struggle within me for the mastery.
I resist as far as I am able;
I struggle according as help is given me.
I call on my Lord Jesus.
For his sake I defend myself,
since I acknowledge myself as wholly his possession.
He is my God,
Him I proclaim my Lord.
I have no other king than my Lord, Jesus Christ.
Come, then, O Lord, and disperse these enemies by your power,
and you shall reign in me, for you are my King and my God.
– St. Bernard of Clairvaux[4]
Almighty God, have mercy on (Name)and on their faults and mine together.
Vouchsafe to amend and redress and make us saved souls in heaven together.
Where we may ever live and love together with you and your blessed saints.
By such easy, tender, merciful means as your own infinite wisdom can best devise;
and on all that bear me evil will and would do me harm.
– St. Thomas More[5]
O my God, with all my heart I am sorry for having sinned against You,
not because I fear the punishment my sins deserve,
but because You are so good
and because I owe to You everything good that I have ever had.
– St. Julie Billart[6]
O tender Father, you gave me more, much more than I ever thought to ask for.
I realize that our human desires can never really match what you long to give us.
Thanks and again thanks, O Father, for having granted my petitions,
and that which I never realized I needed or petitioned.
– St. Catherine of Siena[7]
O Lord my God, Teach my heart this day where and how to see you, Where and how to find you. You have made me and remade me, And you have bestowed on me All the good things I possess, And still I do not know you. I have not yet done that For which I was made. Teach me to seek you, For I cannot seek you Unless you teach me, Or find you Unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in my desire, Let me desire you in my seeking. Let me find you by loving you, Let me love you when I find you.
– St. Anselm[8]
Lord Jesus, bind us to you and to our neighbor with love.
May our hearts not be turned away from you.
May our souls not be deceived nor our talents or minds enticed by allurements of error,
so that we may never distance ourselves from your love.
Thus may we love our neighbor as ourselves with strength, wisdom and gentleness.
With your help, you who are blessed throughout all ages.
- – St. Anthony of Padua
- Hearken to the cry of my heart
- You know, O Lord, what I ask of you
- My heart has so often told you.
- O desire of my soul, grant me the favor I implore;
- – St. John Eudes
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
— Sir Francis Drake[11]
O my God, speak, your servant is listening and is ready to obey you in all things.
- – St. Angela Merici of Brescia
Alas, dear Christ, the Dragon is here again.
Alas, he is here: terror has seized me, and fear.
Alas that I ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Alas that his envy led me to envy too.
I did not become like God; I was cast out of Paradise.
Temper, sword, awhile, the heat of your flames
and let me go again about the garden,
entering with Christ, a thief from another tree.
–
St. Gregory Nazianzus
Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time! Amen.
– St. Jude [14]
Check out the sites and books cited below for additional prayers.
[1] Collected by Alexander Carmichael. Qtd. in Shirley Toulson, The Celtic Year: A Celebration of Celtic Christian Saints, Sites and Festivals (Rockport, Mass.: Element Books, 1996), 41.
[2] World Prayers, “As the Rain Hides the Star,” http://www.worldprayers.org/archive/prayers/celebrations/as_the_rain_hides_the_star.html (accessed June 17, 2011).
[3] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 47-48.
[4] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 103-104.
[5] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 94-95.
[6] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 61.
[7] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 42.
[8] http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Prayer/2009/07/Prayers-of-the-Saints.aspx?p=4 Accessed 10/06/14.
[9] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 29.
[10] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 101.
[11] http://www.worldprayers.org/archive/prayers/invocations/disturb_us_lord_when_we.html (accessed 10/06/14).
[12] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 59.
[13] qtd. in Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Prayers of the Saints:An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 75.
[14] Jude 1:24-25 New Living Translation
Homespun 