Prayer Journal: Formal Prayers

In addition to the prayers I composed for my prayer journal, I also pray various more “formal” prayers.  These prayers have been around longer than me, some composed by saints and many just say what my heart desires by my words haven’t formed yet.  Here are some of my favorites, along with the printable prayers to add to your own prayer journal.

Prayer Journal: Formal Prayers

In my last post introducing my prayer journal, I shared the prayers I had composed for myself, my husband and our children. In this post I’d like to share some more “formal” prayers to be added to my prayer journal. Some of these I have been praying for years, like my Morning Offering. Others are fairly new. They are such beautifully composed prayers I cannot wait until they become old favorites.

First though I want to share a couple of beautiful quotes I printed out years ago and kept in a binder full of various prayers, before I had an “official” prayer journal.

The morning meditation is the plan of battle for the entire day while the examination of conscience is the review of the ordeal of that battlefield. The enemy of the soul strives to convince us to shorten these spiritual exercises. Without them though we cannot live.
–St. Maximilian Kolbe

‘We must speak to God as a friend speaks to his friend, servant to his master; now asking some favor, now acknowledging our faults, and communicating to Him all that concerns us, our thoughts, our fears, our projects, our desires, and in all things seeking His counsel.’
–St. Ignatius of Loyola

Finally, these prayers are not meant to be a burden or a cause of stress over not saying the “right” prayers at the “right” time. These prayers are meant to be a starting point or a guide to increase and deepen our prayer life, not burden our already busy day. To quotes St. Teresa of Avila, “Jacob did not cease to be a Saint because he had to attend to his flocks.” And St. Frances of Rome, “It is most laudable in a married woman to be devout, but she must never forget that she is a housewife. And sometimes she must leave God at the altar to find Him in her housekeeping.”

Here is a link for the more formal prayers to add to your prayer journal.

Traditional Prayers

Here is a lovely book for mothers which also contains many prayers, Mother Love: A Manual for Christian Mothers, with Instructions for the Archconfraternity. And to get the rest of the original prayers I composed, please visit this post, Prayer Journal: Video and Resources.