Catholic prayer for a friend

A friend calls with bad news. A friend is in the hospital, or out of work, or drifting from God, or simply on your heart today for no reason you can name. Praying for a friend is one of the most natural prayers there is, and one of the most Christian: "pray one for another," St. James tells us, for "the continual prayer of a just man availeth much" (James 5:16, Douay-Rheims). Here are the Church's traditional prayers for friends, word for word, for every kind of need, with the saints whose friendships can teach us to pray.

The Catholic prayer for a friend

This is the Church's own prayer "For our Friends," a collect from the old Roman Missal printed among the occasional prayers of the 1888 Manual of Prayers, the prayer book the American bishops ordered after the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore:

O God, who, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, hast poured into the hearts of Thy faithful the gifts of charity: grant to Thy servants and handmaids, for whom we implore Thy mercy, health both of body and soul; that they may love Thee with all their strength, and cheerfully perform those things which are pleasing unto Thee.

Say your friend's name before you begin, and end with "Through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Notice what it asks. It begins by thanking God for friendship itself, since every true friendship is a gift of charity the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts. Then it asks for health "both of body and soul," in that order of importance and in one breath. And it ends by asking that our friends love God "with all their strength." That is the best thing we could want for anyone we love.

A prayer for a friend who is sick

When their brother Lazarus fell ill, Martha and Mary sent Jesus a message. It is one of the shortest prayers in the Bible and one of the best (John 11:3, Douay-Rheims):

Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.

They don't tell Him what to do. They remind Him whom He loves and leave the rest to Him. St. John adds simply, "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus" (John 11:5). He was their friend. When He came to the tomb, "Jesus wept," and the people said, "Behold how he loved him" (John 11:35–36). Then He called Lazarus out.

Pray it with your friend's name: "Lord, behold, N., whom Thou lovest, is sick." Then call or visit, which is prayer in action. For the Church's full prayers for the sick, the Anointing of the Sick and the saints of healing, see our prayer for healing and prayer for the sick pages.

A prayer for a friend who is struggling

For a friend in temptation, depression, addiction or any affliction, the Manual's prayer "For the Tempted and Afflicted" fits:

O God, who justifiest the ungodly, and willest not the death of a sinner: we humbly entreat Thy Majesty to protect Thy servants, who trust in Thy mercy, with Thy heavenly assistance, and preserve them by Thy continual protection; that they may constantly serve Thee, and by no temptation be separated from Thee.

St. Francis de Sales, a wise guide for people under strain, gave this counsel to anxious souls in his Introduction to the Devout Life: "If you can lay your anxiety before your spiritual guide, or at least before some trusty and devout friend, you may be sure that you will find great solace." Sometimes we are the friend God sends. Pray for your friend, and then listen to them.

A prayer for a friend far from God

Many of us carry a friend who has stopped going to Mass or stopped believing. The patron of that long prayer is St. Monica, who prayed for her son for years before he came home and became St. Augustine.

Augustine himself learned what friendship is for when a close friend of his youth died. In the Confessions he wrote that his friend had been "half of my soul," that they had been "one soul in two bodies," and that grief made his life "a horror." Looking back years later, he saw the lesson (Book IV, in E. B. Pusey's translation):

Blessed whoso loveth Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thee. For he alone loses none dear to him, to whom all are dear in Him who cannot be lost.

Loving a friend "in God" means wanting God for them more than anything else. So we keep praying, we keep the door open, and we never stop being their friend.

A prayer for a friend who has died

Friendship doesn't end at the grave, and neither does prayer. The 1888 Manual gives this short prayer "For a dead Friend":

Help us, O God of our salvation, and at the prayers of Mary, the most Blessed Mother of God, ever Virgin, let the soul of Thy servant have a place in the light of everlasting blessedness.

Add "Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord," have a Mass offered on the anniversary, and visit the grave when you can. For more, see our prayers for the dead and our prayer for grief.

Thanking God for a friend

We pray for friends when they're in trouble, and we should also thank God for them when they aren't. Scripture is clear that a good friend is a gift (Ecclesiasticus 6:14–17, Douay-Rheims):

A faithful friend is a strong defence: and he that hath found him, hath found a treasure. Nothing can be compared to a faithful friend, and no weight of gold and silver is able to countervail the goodness of his fidelity. A faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality: and they that fear the Lord, shall find him. He that feareth God, shall likewise have good friendship: because according to him shall his friend be.

The old Universal Prayer, printed in The Garden of the Soul (1872), asks for the grace to be that kind of friend. One of its petitions: "Let me always remember to be submissive to my superiors, condescending to my inferiors, faithful to my friends, and charitable to my enemies."

And Our Lord Himself calls us friends: "I will not now call you servants... But I have called you friends" (John 15:15). Every friendship we have is a small share in His.

Friendship in the lives of the saints

The saints were not loners. Some of their friendships are among the great stories of the Church.

St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nazianzus met as students and studied together in Athens. After Basil died, Gregory remembered their youth in his funeral oration (Oration 43): "We seemed to have one soul, inhabiting two bodies." They competed, he said, "not each to gain the first place for himself, but to yield it to the other." The Church keeps their feast together on January 2.

St. Francis de Sales wrote a whole chapter on friendship, and he didn't think it was only for monks. A friendship built on charity and devotion, he wrote, is "precious because it comes from God, because it tends to God, because God is the link that binds you, because it will last for ever in Him. Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven." His own friendship with St. Jane Frances de Chantal bore fruit in a new religious order, the Visitation.

St. John the Apostle is the disciple "whom Jesus loved," who was "leaning on Jesus' bosom" at the Last Supper (John 13:23). He is the patron many Catholics ask for their friendships.

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati founded a joking society with his friends in Turin in 1924, the "Company of Shady Characters," and brought them up Alpine peaks and into prayer together. He shows how ordinary friends can help one another toward heaven.

The saints to ask for a friend

• St. John the Apostle, for every friendship.
• Sts. Basil and Gregory, for friends who share the faith.
• St. Monica, for a friend far from God.
• St. Martha and St. Lazarus, Our Lord's friends at Bethany, for a friend who is sick or grieving.
• St. Raphael, who was a faithful companion to young Tobias, for a friend who is sick or traveling.
• The Blessed Virgin Mary, who hurried to her cousin Elizabeth when she heard her news.

St. John, beloved friend of Our Lord, pray for our friends and for us. For other needs, see our prayer for family, prayer for protection and all our Catholic prayers.