Work of God 
Articles related to the first work of God: Prayer. These include both the public prayer of the Church, private prayers, and methods of praying.
How to make a special consecration to St. Raphael the Archangel
The consecration prayer calls on St. Raphael’s assistance in the “struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.” Within the Catholic Church, there are various devotional traditions with which you can consecrate yourself and your family to God, invoking the special intercession of a saint. One of the most popular consecration prayers is that… Read More ›
A forgotten prayer to St. Michael against the assaults of evil
The prayer dates to the 9th century and invokes the Archangel’s protection from the enemy of our souls. While many are familiar with the traditional “St. Michael Prayer” of Pope Leo XIII, it is not the only prayer of the Church to the Holy Archangel. In the Raccolta, a collection of prayers that dates to the early… Read More ›
Padre Pio’s Prayer After Communion
Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need Your strength, that I may not fall so often. Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without meaning and hope. Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without You, I am in darkness. Stay… Read More ›
Psalm 139(138): “The wonder of my being”
1. At this General Audience on Wednesday of the Octave of Christmas, the liturgical Feast of the Holy Innocents, let us resume our meditation on Psalm 139[138], proposed in the Liturgy of Vespers in two distinct stages. After contemplating in the first part (cf. vv. 1-12) the omniscient and omnipotent God, the Lord of being… Read More ›
Psalm 139(138): “O where can I go?”
1. The Liturgy of Vespers – on whose Psalms and Canticles we are meditating – offers us in two separate phases the reading of a sapiential hymn of clear beauty and strong emotional impact: Psalm 139[138]. Today, we have before us the first part of the composition (cf. vv. 1-12), that is, the first two strophes… Read More ›
Divine Mercy Sunday
During the course of Jesus’ revelations to Saint Faustina on the Divine Mercy He asked on numerous occasions that a feast day be dedicated to the Divine Mercy and that this feast be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. The liturgical texts of that day, the 2nd Sunday of Easter, concern the institution of the… Read More ›
“Go to Your Inner Room”
“The source of Christian joy is the certainty of being loved by God, loved personally by our Creator, by the one who holds the entire universe in his hands.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Rome Diocesan Congress, June 23, 2006) With these words, Pope Benedict placed an emphasis on an experience of love, an… Read More ›
The Very Best Spiritual Warfare Prayer for Conversions of Loved Ones
“As we enter heaven we will see them, so many of them coming towards us and thanking us. We will ask who they are, and they will say a poor soul you prayed for in purgatory.” -Venerable Fulton Sheen How many of us had grandparents who had their stack of holy cards in their prayer book?… Read More ›
The oldest Christian prayer outside of the Bible
The prayer was written near the end of the first century. Scripture is full of prayers from front to cover, but after the final page of Revelation, how did the early Christians pray to God? The oldest known Christian prayer outside of the Bible can be found in the works of St. Clement of Rome,… Read More ›
Remembering the dead at every meal
An important tradition that pays homage to the faithful departed. Many families maintain a tradition of invoking God’s blessing upon their food before eating. It is a simple way of thanking God for the bounty he has provided, recognizing his providential hand in our daily care. It is a Catholic tradition to add to this… Read More ›