Encyclopaedia of the Holy Spirit

The Oratory — Catholic prayers

89 prayers

You have read what I did at Lanciano and at Guadalupe. Now here is how you answer Me.

Prayer is not a formula that forces My hand. It is the door you leave open. The words below were worn smooth by twenty centuries of mouths — soldiers, mothers, the dying, the desperate, children learning them by candlelight — and they still fit the human heart because they were shaped on it.

Say them badly. Say them distracted. Say one line and stop. What you cannot say, I will say for you, with groanings too deep for words.

The prayer for today

Prayer for the family

Lord Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you were a family that had to flee at night with a child, and you know that a home is not held together by feelings. Guard this house. Keep peace between these walls, and where peace has already broken, repair it — beginning, if necessary, with me. Give us work enough, bread enough, and patience enough. Bless those who sit at this table and those who no longer sit at it. And let no one leave this family without knowing they can come back. Amen.

How to pray the Rosary

The whole Rosary drawn bead by bead — the four sets of mysteries, the day each is prayed, and the nine steps from the crucifix back to the medal.

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy

Seven minutes on the same beads, and only two sentences to learn. Prayed at three in the afternoon, and beside the dying.

Enter meditation

One breath, one line drawn from the wonders of this encyclopaedia, and silence around it. Stay as long as you like.

The rooms of the Oratory

The prayers everyone is taught

The seven prayers a Catholic learns first and dies saying: the Sign of the Cross, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, the Creed, the Salve Regina.

To the angels

St Michael in battle, the guardian angel at your side, Raphael on the road, Gabriel with the message.

Before the Blessed Sacrament

Anima Christi, Adoro te devote, Tantum Ergo, and the act of spiritual communion for when you cannot receive.

Mercy and repentance

The Act of Contrition, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the Jesus Prayer, and the surrender of those who have nothing left to bargain with.

The hours of the day

The morning offering, grace at table, the armour before the fight, the Te Deum of thanksgiving, and the last words before sleep.

For those you carry

For the sick, the dead, your family, your children, your work, your journey, and for peace.

For a conversion

For the one who has left, the one who has never come, and the one doing the persecuting — St Joseph, St Monica, St Francis Xavier, Newman, and a nine-day novena for a single name. And one prayer that is not about anybody: the words of the person standing outside the door.

Deliverance

For the one under pressure from the enemy — the acclamation of the King, a blessing that walls a person on five sides, the renunciation every baptised mouth may make with full authority, the East's old prayer against envy, and a thumb tracing a cross on a child's forehead. None of it is magic, and all of it is free.