Prayers (A-Z)

O immaculate virgin, Mother of God, full of grace, the One whom you brought forth, Emmanuel, is the fruit of your womb. In your Motherhood you have nurtured all human beings. You surpass all praise and all glory. I salute you, Mother of God, joy of the Angels, because you surpass in fullness what the Prophets have said about you. The Lord is with you: you gave life to the Saviour of the world.

My failure to be true even to my own accepted standards: 
O Lord, forgive! 

“My self-deception in the face of temptation: O Lord, forgive!

My choosing of the worse when I knew the better: O Lord forgive!

My failure to apply to myself the standards of conduct that I demand of others;  O Lord forgive!

My blindness to the suffering of others and my slowness to be taught by my own: O Lord, forgive!

My complacence toward wrongs that do not touch my won case and my over sensitiveness to those that do: 
O Lord, forgive!

My slowness to see the good in my fellows and to see the evil in myself: 
O Lord forgive!

My hardness of heart toward my neighbor’s faults and my readiness to make allowance for my own: 
O Lord for give!

My unwillingness to believe that You have called me to a small work and my brother to a great one: 
O Lord, forgive!

O Mary bright dawn of the new world, Mother of the living, to you do we entrust the cause of life: Look down, O Mother, upon the vast numbers of babies not allowed to be born, of the poor whose lives are made difficult, of men and women who are victims of brutal violence, of the elderly and the sick killed by indifference or out of misguided mercy. Grant that all who believe in your Son may proclaim the Gospel of life with honesty and love to the people of our time. Obtain for them the grace to accept that Gospel as a gift ever new, the joy of celebrating it with gratitude throughout their lives and the courage to bear witness to it resolutely, in order to build, together with all people of good will, the civilization of truth and love, to the praise and glory of God, the Creator and lover of life.

O Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, With joy and wonder we seek to make our own your Magnificat, joining you in your hymn of thankfulness and love. 

With you we give thanks to God “whose mercy is from generation to generation,” for the exalted vocation and the many forms of mission entrusted to the lay faithful. God has called each of them by name to live his own communion of love and holiness and to be one in the great family of God’s children. He has sent them forth to shine with the light of Christ and to communicate the fire of the Spirit in every part of society through their life inspired by the Gospel. O Virgin of the Magnificat, fill their hearts with a gratitude and enthusiasm for this vocation and mission. With humility and magnanimity you were the “handmaid of the Lord;” give us your unreserved willingness for service to God and the salvation of the world. Open our hearts to the great anticipation of the Kingdom of God and of the proclamation of the Gospel to the whole of creation. Your mother’s heart is ever mindful of the many dangers and evils which threaten to overpower men and women in our time. At the same time your heart also takes notice of the many initiatives undertaken for good, the great yearning for values, and the progress achieved in bringing forth the abundant fruits of salvation.

O Virgin full of courage, may your spiritual strength and trust in God inspire us, so that we might know how to overcome all the obstacles that we encounter in accomplishing our mission. Teach us to treat the affairs of the world with a real sense of Christian responsibility and a joyful hope of the coming of God’s Kingdom, and of a “new heavens and a new earth.” You who were gathered in prayer with the Apostles in the Cenacle, awaiting the coming of the spirit at Pentecost, implore his renewed outpouring on all the faithful, men and women alike, so that they might more fully respond to their vocation and mission, as branches engrafted to the true vine, called to bear much fruit for the life of the world.

O Virgin Mother guide and sustain us so that we might always live as true sons and daughters of the Church of your son. Enable us to do our part in helping to establish on earth the civilization of truth and love, as God wills it, for his glory.

Amen.

O most loving Jesus, deign to let me pour forth my gratitude before Thee, for the grace Thou hast bestowed upon me in giving me to Thy holy Mother through the devotion of Holy Bondage, that she may be my advocate in the presence of Thy majesty and my support in my extreme misery. Alas, O Lord! I am so wretched that without this dear Mother I should be certainly lost. Yes, Mary is necessary for me at Thy side and everywhere that she may appease Thy just wrath, because I have so often offended Thee; that she may save me from the eternal punishment of Thy justice, which I deserve; that she may contemplate Thee, speak to Thee, pray to Thee, approach Thee and please Thee; that she may help me to save my soul and the souls of others; in short, Mary is necessary for me that I may always do Thy holy will and seek Thy greater glory in all things. Ah, would that I could proclaim throughout the whole world the mercy that Thou hast shown to me! Would that everyone might know I should be already damned, were it not for Mary! Would that I might offer worthy thanksgiving for so great a blessing! 

Mary is in me. Oh, what a treasure! Oh, what a consolation! And shall I not be entirely hers? Oh, what ingratitude! My dear Saviour, send me death rather than such a calamity, for I would rather die than live without belonging entirely to Mary. With St. John the Evangelist at the foot of the Cross, I have taken her a thousand times for my own and as many times have given myself to her; but if I have not yet done it as Thou, dear Jesus, dost wish, I now renew this offering as Thou dost desire me to renew it. And if Thou seest in my soul or my body anything that does not belong to this august princess, I pray Thee to take it and cast it far from me, for whatever in me does not belong to Mary is unworthy of Thee. 

O Holy Spirit, grant me all these graces. Plant in my soul the Tree of true Life, which is Mary; cultivate it and tend it so that it may grow and blossom and bring forth the fruit of life in abundance. O Holy Spirit, give me great devotion to Mary, Thy faithful spouse; give me great confidence in her maternal heart and an abiding refuge in her mercy, so that by her Thou mayest truly form in me Jesus Christ, great and mighty, unto the fullness of His perfect age. 

Amen.

O Mother of Perpetual Help 
To thee we come imploring help. 
Behold us here, from far and near, 
To ask of thee our help to be; 
Behold us here, from far and near, 
To ask of thee our help to be. 

Perpetual help we beg of thee; 
Our souls from sin and sorrow free; 
Direct our wandering feet aright, 
And be thyself our own true light; 
Direct our wandering feet aright, 
And be thyself out own true light. 

And when this life is o’er for me, 
This last request I ask of thee: 
Obtain for me in heaven this grace, 
To see my God there face to face; 
Obtain for me in heaven this grace, 
To see my God there face to face.

O my most sweet Mother, how shall I die, poor sinner that I am? Even now the thought of that important moment when I must expire, and appear before the judgment-seat of God, and the remembrance that I have myself so often written my condemnation by consenting to sin, makes me tremble. I am confounded, and fear much for my eternal salvation. O Mary, in the blood of Jesus, and in thy intercession, is all my hope. Thou art the Queen of heaven, the mistress of the universe; in short, thou art the Mother of God. Thou art great, but thy greatness does not prevent, nay, even it inclines thee to greater compassion towards us in our miseries. Worldly friends when raised to dignity disdain to notice their former friends who may have fallen into distress. Thy noble and loving heart does not act thus, for the greater the miseries it beholds the greater are its efforts to relieve. Thou, when called upon, dost immediately assist; nay, more, thou dost anticipate our prayers by thy favors; thou consolest us in our afflictions; thou dissipatest the storms by which we are tossed about; thou overcomest all enemies; thou, in fine, never losest an occasion to promote our welfare. May that divine hand which has united in thee such majesty and such tenderness, such greatness and so much love, be forever blessed! I thank my Lord for it, and congratulate myself in having so great an advantage; for truly in thy felicity do I place my own, and I consider thy lot as mine. O comfortress of the afflicted, console a poor creature who recommends himself to thee. The remorse of a conscience overburdened with sins fills me with affliction. I am in doubt as to whether I have sufficiently grieved for them. I see that all my actions are sullied and defective; hell awaits my death in order to accuse me; the outraged justice of God demands satisfaction. My Mother, what will become of me? If thou dost not help me, I am lost. What sayest thou, wilt thou assist me? O compassionate Virgin, console me; obtain for me true sorrow for my sins; obtain for me strength to amend, and to be faithful to God during the rest of my life. And finally, when I am in the last agonies of death, O Mary, my hope, abandon me not; then, more than ever, help and encourage me, that I may not despair at the sight of my sins, which the evil one will then place before me. My Lady, forgive my temerity; come thyself to comfort me with thy presence in that last struggle. This favor thou hast granted to many, grant it also to me. If my boldness is great, thy goodness is greater; for it goes in search of the most miserable to console them. On this I rely. For thy eternal glory, let it be said that thou hast snatched a wretched creature from hell, to which he was already condemned, and that thou hast led him to thy kingdom. Oh, yes, sweet Mother, I hope to have the consolation of remaining always at thy feet in heaven, thanking and blessing and loving thee eternally. O Mary, I shall expect thee at my last hour; deprive me not of this consolation. Fiat, fiat. Amen, amen.

From Hail Holy Queen! by St. Alphonsus Liguori

O Precious Blood of Jesus, infinite price of sinful man’s redemption, both drink and laver of our souls, Thou who dost plead continually the cause of man before the throne of infinite mercy; from the depths of my heart, I adore Thee, and so far as I am able, I would requite Thee for the insults and outrages which Thou dost continually receive from human beings, and especially from those who rashly dare to blaspheme Thee. Who would not bless this Blood of infinite value? Who doth not feel within himself the fire of the love of Jesus who shed it all for us? What would be my fate, had I not been redeemed by this Divine Blood? Who hath drawn it from the veins of my Savior, even to the last drop? Ah, this surely was the work of love. O infinite love, which has given us this saving balm! O balm beyond all price, welling up from the fountain of infinite love, grant that every heart and every tongue may be enabled to praise Thee, magnify Thee and give Thee thanks both now and for evermore.

Amen.

O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of His Passion is renewed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us. 

V. Thou didst give them bread from heaven:
R. Containing in itself all sweetness. 

O God, who under a wonderful Sacrament hast left us a memorial of Thy Passion; grant us, we beseech Thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of Thy Body and Blood, that we may ever feel within ourselves the fruit of Thy Redemption: Who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

Amen.

In Paschaltide the following prayer is said:
Pour upon us, O Lord, the Spirit of Thy love, to make us of one heart, whom, by Thy tender mercy, Thou hast filled with the paschal sacrament. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

O Salutary Sacrifice! Whose death has opened Paradise: By hostile war oppressed, afraid, To Thee we look for strength and aid. Now to the triune God in Heaven, Be everlasting glory given; Where life eternal in His hand Invites us to our Fatherland.