Prayers
54 prayers of the Catholic tradition, in English, with a note on each saying what it is and when people pray it. Search by name, by another name for the same prayer, or by what you are actually facing.
Try a name like Memorare, another name for the same prayer like Salve Regina, or simply grief or before surgery.
6 prayers
Sorrow and Mercy
Prayers of repentance, and what to pray before and after Confession.
- Act of Contrition2 forms
The prayer of sorrow for sin, said at the end of Confession and traditionally each night before sleep. Both the long and short forms are given.
- The Confiteor
The general confession of sin. Note that this is the traditional devotional wording, not the form currently used at Mass — see the note on the text.
- The Jesus Prayer2 forms
One sentence, repeated slowly, often in time with the breath. It comes from the desert monks of the fourth century and is the whole of the Gospel compressed into twelve words.
- Psalm 51 — Have Mercy on Me, O God
David’s psalm after his sin was uncovered, and the Church’s great penitential prayer. Prayed every Friday morning, and by many people after Confession.
- Prayer Before a Crucifix
Prayed kneeling before a crucifix, traditionally after Communion on a Friday. It asks for the one thing that cannot be manufactured: real sorrow and real amendment.
- Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
A short litany-style novena that unites the one praying with the prayer and virtues of the heart of Jesus, ending with a prayer of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. The source has it made each month so as to end on the eve of the First Friday, and it suits the nine days before the feast of the Sacred Heart as well.
Mass and the Eucharist
Prayers before and after Communion, before the Blessed Sacrament, and before a crucifix.
Novenas
Prayers made over nine days, for a feast or for something you are asking for.
About these texts
Every prayer here is a received text of the Catholic tradition, reproduced from published sources that are named on each prayer's own page. None of them were written by us, and none have been reworded.
Where a prayer has a modern wording still under copyright — the Mass texts belonging to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, for instance — we publish the older traditional wording instead and say so on the page. GraceBook is not a publisher of liturgical books, and nothing here should be taken as the text to be used in the liturgy.
Scripture passages are from the Douay-Rheims Bible in the Challoner revision. If you find an error in any text, tell us and we will correct it.