Catholic prayer for courage

Courage is what we need when we are afraid and have to act anyway. Walking into chemotherapy. Telling the truth when it will cost us. Standing up for the faith at work or at school. Deploying overseas. Getting out of a marriage that has turned violent. Calling the doctor about the lump. None of the saints were fearless. They were afraid and they prayed, and God gave them what they lacked. Here are the traditional Catholic prayers for courage, word for word and with their sources, the Scripture that has steadied the frightened for three thousand years, and the saints whose courage still teaches us.

A prayer for courage to St. Philip Neri

St. Philip Neri, the cheerful priest of 16th-century Rome, suffered more than his reputation for jokes suggests: he was slandered, envied by other clergy, and sick for much of his long life. The 1910 Raccolta (no. 344) gives a prayer to him for each day of the week, which Pius IX indulgenced in 1852. Monday's prayer is headed "to obtain the virtue of Patience," but read it and you will see what it really asks for: "a spirit of true courage in every adversity."

St Philip, my patron Saint, whose heart was ever so constant in time of trouble, and whose spirit was so loving under suffering that, when persecuted by the jealous, or calumniated by the wicked who thought to discredit thy sanctity, or, when tried by God with many long painful infirmities, thou didst always bear thy trials with wonderful tranquillity of heart and mind; pray for me that I may have a spirit of true courage in every adversity. Alas, how much I stand in need of patience! I shrink from every little trouble; I sicken under every light affliction; I fire up at and resent every trifling contradiction; never setting myself to learn that the road to Paradise lies amidst the thorns of tribulation. Yet was this the path our Divine Master deigned to tread, and this too, my saintly patron, was thy path also. Obtain for me, then, this courage, that with good hearty will I may embrace the crosses which every day I receive from God, and bear them all with the same endurance and ready will which thou didst manifest on earth; that so I may be made worthy to enjoy the blessed fruit of sufferings with thee in heaven above.

The prayer ends with an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be. "I shrink from every little trouble" is honest. Courage, in this prayer, is not a feeling of bravery. It is the willingness to "embrace the crosses which every day I receive from God," one day at a time.

Courage is a gift of the Holy Spirit

The Church's word for courage is fortitude. It is one of the four cardinal virtues and one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, poured into us at Confirmation. The Catechism (no. 1808) says fortitude "ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good," and "enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions."

So when we pray for courage, we are asking God to stir up a gift we have already been given. The prayer for the Spirit of Fortitude in the Manual of Prayers of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore asks Him to "give me courage against all the assaults of my enemies." It is printed in full on our prayer for strength page, and our prayer to the Holy Spirit page has more.

Queen Esther's prayer for boldness

One of the bravest prayers in the Bible comes from a young woman who was terrified. Esther, a Jewish orphan made queen of Persia, learned that a decree had gone out to kill her people. The only way to stop it was to go before the king without being summoned, and the law said anyone who did so could be put to death. She fasted for three days and prayed. Part of her prayer, in the Douay-Rheims (Esther 14:12–14):

Remember, O Lord, and shew thyself to us in the time of our tribulation, and give me boldness, O Lord, king of gods, and of all power: Give me a well ordered speech in my mouth in the presence of the lion, and turn his heart to the hatred of our enemy, that both he himself may perish, and the rest that consent to him. But deliver us by thy hand, and help me, who have no other helper, but thee, O Lord, who hast the knowledge of all things.

"Give me boldness" and "a well ordered speech in my mouth" make a perfect prayer before any hard conversation. Esther went in, she fainted at the king's feet, and her people were saved.

A prayer to the Holy Helpers for strength and courage

The Fourteen Holy Helpers were nearly all martyrs, people who faced death for Christ. Father Bonaventure Hammer's 1909 prayer book about them gives this invocation:

With confiding trust I turn to you, Holy Helpers, who were selected by God before many other saints to be the special intercessors and advocates of the distressed. Obtain for me strength and courage to struggle and suffer on earth for the glory of God, for the propagation of our holy faith, and for my own perfection. You are fruitful branches of the true and living vine, Jesus Christ, for whom you heroically suffered hunger and thirst, persecution and ignominy, afflictions and adversity, tortures and death. Here on earth you were true disciples and dauntless martyrs of Christ. Assist me to follow your example and to suffer for His sake, so that I may not be parted from Him as a useless member, but persevere in His service despite all trials and tribulations of life. Knowing my inconstancy and weakness, I have recourse to you, O glorious members of the Church triumphant, and implore you to support my feeble prayers, and to bear them before the throne of the Almighty, who, for your sake, will hear them. Amen.

Among the fourteen is St. George, the soldier martyr. The dragon in his story is a traditional legend from the Middle Ages; his martyrdom under Diocletian is what the Church honors. For the whole story of the Holy Helpers, see our prayer for help.

Scripture for courage

God says "fear not" again and again in the Bible, nearly always to someone who had good reason to be afraid. These passages are in the Douay-Rheims.

Behold I command thee, take courage, and be strong. Fear not and be not dismayed: because the Lord thy God is with thee in all things whatsoever thou shalt go to. (Josue 1:9)

God said this to Josue as he took over from Moses and faced the conquest of a land full of enemies. Notice the reason given: not "you are strong enough," but "the Lord thy God is with thee."

Do manfully and be of good heart: fear not, nor be ye dismayed at their sight: for the Lord thy God he himself is thy leader, and will not leave thee nor forsake thee. (Deuteronomy 31:6)

The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life: of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 26:1)

Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord. (Psalm 26:14)

These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear: but of power, and of love, and of sobriety. (2 Timothy 1:7)

When King Nabuchodonosor threatened three young Jews with the furnace if they would not worship his golden statue, they answered with the bravest words in the Old Testament (Daniel 3:17–18):

For behold our God, whom we worship, is able to save us from the furnace of burning fire, and to deliver us out of thy hands, O king. But if he will not, be it known to thee, O king, that we will not worship thy gods, nor adore the golden statue which thou hast set up.

"But if he will not." That is Christian courage: trusting God to save us, and doing right even if he chooses not to.

The saints of courage

The Church has a long line of brave men and women to call on. Not one of them was brave by nature alone.

• St. Joan of Arc, a farm girl of seventeen who led an army, and at nineteen faced her judges and the stake.
• St. Michael the Archangel, who leads the fight against evil. See the St. Michael prayer.
• St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, who in 1535 went to their deaths rather than deny the authority of the Pope over the Church in England.
• St. Maximilian Kolbe, who stepped forward at Auschwitz in 1941 to take the place of a condemned father of a family.
• Blessed Miguel Pro, the Mexican Jesuit who faced a firing squad in 1927 with his arms stretched out in the form of a cross.
• St. José Sánchez del Río, a boy of fourteen who would not renounce Christ in 1928.
• Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian farmer who refused to fight for Hitler and was executed in 1943.
• Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, a young mother and her pregnant servant who faced the beasts in Carthage in 203.

For the soldier saints in particular, see warrior saints and the patron saints of soldiers.

How to pray for courage

1. Name the fear. Tell God exactly what you are afraid of. Jesus in the garden did not hide his fear; he prayed it.
2. Pray before the moment, not just during it. Pray the St. Philip prayer in the morning, Esther's "give me boldness" on the way in.
3. Go to confession and Holy Communion. The saints went to their trials fed by the sacraments.
4. Ask others to pray for you, and tell someone what you are about to do. Courage is easier in company.
5. Take the next step only. Courage is rarely needed for the whole road at once. It is needed for the next phone call, the next conversation, the next day.

Let us pray together now in the words of St. Philip's prayer: "pray for me that I may have a spirit of true courage in every adversity." And then let us hear what Our Lord said to his frightened friends on the stormy sea: "Be of good heart: it is I, fear ye not" (Matthew 14:27). For more, see our prayers for strength, for protection and for anxiety, and all our Catholic prayers.