Catholic prayer for fathers

Every father on earth borrows his name from God. St. Paul writes that he bows his knees "to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named" (Ephesians 3:14–15, Douay-Rheims). A good father shows his children something of God; a struggling one needs our prayers all the more. Here are the traditional Catholic prayers for fathers, word for word and with their sources: a father's own prayer for his children, prayers for a living father and a father who has died, and the prayers to St. Joseph, the patron of fathers.

A father's prayer for his children

This prayer comes from A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, the American prayer book issued under the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1888). It is written for a parent to pray, and it asks for the things every father worries about: when to give and when to refuse, when to correct and when to let something go. The text:

O Father of mankind, who hast given unto me these my children, and committed them to my charge to bring them up for Thee, and to prepare them for everlasting life: assist me with Thy heavenly grace, that I may be able to fulfil this most sacred duty and stewardship. Teach me both what to give and what to withhold; when to reprove and when to forbear; make me to be gentle, yet firm; considerate and watchful; and deliver me equally from the weakness of indulgence, and the excess of severity; and grant that, both by word and example, I may be careful to lead them in the ways of wisdom and true piety, so that at last I may, with them, be admitted to the unspeakable joys of our true home in heaven, in the company of the blessed Angels and Saints.

The same page gives a second, shorter prayer that a father can say over his children at night:

O heavenly Father, I commend my children unto Thee. Be Thou their God and Father; and mercifully supply whatever is wanting in me through frailty or negligence. Strengthen them to overcome the corruptions of the world, to resist all solicitations to evil, whether from within or without; and deliver them from the secret snares of the enemy. Pour Thy grace into their hearts, and confirm and multiply in them the gifts of Thy Holy Spirit, that they may daily grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; and so, faithfully serving Thee here, may come to rejoice in Thy presence hereafter.

"Supply whatever is wanting in me." No father is enough on his own, and this prayer says so plainly. Many Catholic fathers add an old family custom: at bedtime they trace the sign of the cross on each child's forehead with a thumb, as a blessing.

A prayer for my father

The Manual of Prayers (1888) also gives a child's prayer for a father and mother. It thanks God for parents made "an image of Thine authority, and love, and tender watchfulness," and grown children can pray it as well as small ones:

O Almighty God, who hast given unto me my father and mother, and made them to be an image of Thine authority, and love, and tender watchfulness; and hast commanded me to love, and honor, and obey them in all things: give me grace cheerfully and with my whole heart to keep this Thy law. Help me to love them fervently, to honor them truly, to yield a ready obedience to their commands, to comply with their wishes, to study their happiness in everything, and to bear their rebukes with patience and humility.

When a father grows old, the Book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) has the words a son or daughter needs. In the Douay-Rheims (Ecclesiasticus 3:9–10, 14–15):

Honour thy father, in work and word, and all patience, That a blessing may come upon thee from him, and his blessing may remain in the latter end. ... Son, support the old age of thy father, and grieve him not in his life; And if his understanding fail, have patience with him, and despise him not when thou art in thy strength: for the relieving of the father shall not be forgotten.

"If his understanding fail, have patience with him." Anyone caring for a father with dementia knows how much that verse asks, and how much grace it takes.

If your father is ill, see our Catholic prayer for the sick; if he is near the end, our prayer for the dying.

Prayers to St. Joseph for fathers

St. Joseph is the patron of fathers because God gave him the work of being a father to His own Son. Pope Francis began his 2020 apostolic letter on St. Joseph with the words Patris corde, "with a father's heart," and wrote there: "Fathers are not born, but made. A man does not become a father simply by bringing a child into the world, but by taking up the responsibility to care for that child."

The Church's own prayer to St. Joseph is the collect of his feast. In the Raccolta of 1910 (no. 300):

O God, who in thine ineffable providence didst vouchsafe to choose blessed Joseph to be the spouse of thy most holy Mother; grant, we beseech Thee, that we may have him for our intercessor in heaven, whom on earth we venerate as our holy Protector. Who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen.

The Litany of St. Joseph, approved by St. Pius X in 1909, has titles that read like a description of a good father. From the Raccolta's English:

Head of the Holy Family, pray for us. Joseph most just, pray for us. Joseph most strong, pray for us. Joseph most faithful, pray for us. Mirror of patience, pray for us. Model of artisans, pray for us. Glory of home life, pray for us. Pillar of families, pray for us.

For the whole litany, the 2021 additions and Leo XIII's prayer "To thee, O blessed Joseph," see our St. Joseph prayer page.

For those who need a father

Not everyone had a good father, and some had none at all. For them the Church offers St. Joseph himself. Leo XIII indulgenced a consecration to St. Joseph in 1885, and its closing lines are a prayer anyone can make (Raccolta, no. 306):

O dearest St Joseph, be pleased to accept the consecration which I make to thee of myself. I dedicate myself entirely to thee that thou mayest ever be my father, my protector, and my guide in the way of salvation. Obtain for me great purity of heart and a fervent love of the interior life. Grant that after thy example all my actions may be directed to the greater glory of God, in union with the divine Heart of Jesus and the immaculate heart of Mary, and with thee. Finally, pray for me that I may be able to share in the peace and joy of thy most holy death. Amen.

Pray for your own father too, by name, whatever he was. Forgiving him is something we ask God to do in us; it rarely happens in one day.

A Father's Day prayer

The Church's calendar has no Father's Day of its own. In Italy, Spain, Portugal and much of the Catholic world, fathers are honored on March 19, the solemnity of St. Joseph, and many families keep a St. Joseph's table that day. In the United States, Father's Day is the third Sunday of June.

On either day, these are good ways for a Catholic family to pray for its fathers:

1. Have a Mass offered for your father, living or dead. It is the greatest gift you can give him.
2. Pray the prayers above together at the table: the children pray for their father, and the father prays the parents' prayer for them.
3. Pray the Litany of St. Joseph as a family, or begin his novena nine days before March 19.
4. Ask your father for his blessing. It is an old custom, and Scripture honors it: "The father's blessing establisheth the houses of the children" (Ecclesiasticus 3:11).

A father's counsel: Tobias

The Book of Tobias (Tobit) gives us a father's last advice to his son, given when old Tobias thought he was about to die. It is still the best summary of what a Catholic father hopes to pass on. In the Douay-Rheims (Tobias 4:2, 6–7, 20):

Hear, my son, the words of my mouth, and lay them as a foundation in thy heart. ... And all the days of thy life have God in thy mind: and take heed thou never consent to sin, nor transgress the commandments of the Lord our God. Give alms out of thy substance, and turn not away thy face from any poor person: for so it shall come to pass that the face of the Lord shall not be turned from thee. ... Bless God at all times: and desire of him to direct thy ways, and that all thy counsels may abide in him.

A prayer for a deceased father

For a father who has died, the Church has prayed this collect at Masses for deceased parents for centuries. The Manual of Prayers (1888) gives it so:

O God, who hast commanded us to honor our father and mother, look in the tenderness of Thy mercy upon the souls of my father and mother, and forgive them their sins, and grant unto me the joy of seeing them again in the glorious light of everlasting life.

Have a Mass offered on the anniversary of his death, visit his grave, and pray the Eternal Rest for him every day. Our pages of prayers for the dead and the Catholic prayer for grief have more prayers for a father you miss, and our prayer for mothers covers mothers living and departed.

The saints we ask to pray for fathers

• St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, patron of fathers, families and workers.
• St. Joachim, father of the Blessed Virgin Mary and grandfather of Jesus, according to the Church's ancient tradition. We honor him with St. Anne on July 26.
• Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, canonized together by Pope Francis on October 18, 2015. Louis was a watchmaker who raised five daughters, all of whom became nuns, and he cared for them alone after Zélie died.
• St. Thomas More, a devoted father who educated his daughters as carefully as his son, and whose letters to his daughter Margaret Roper are still read for their tenderness.
• St. Isidore the Farmer, a farmhand near Madrid who went to Mass every morning before work and raised his family in poverty.
• St. Louis IX, the king of France who wrote out his teachings for his son Philip before he died.

For more on fathers, mothers and the home, see the patron saints of families and our Catholic prayer for family.

St. Joseph, guardian of the Redeemer and head of the Holy Family, pray for our fathers, living and dead. Let us ask him tonight to keep them close to Jesus and Mary, as he did in the house at Nazareth. To find more prayers for every need, browse all our Catholic prayers and novenas.