Catholic prayer for strength

Some days ask more of us than we have. A diagnosis, a child in trouble, a job that grinds us down, a grief that won't lift, a temptation that keeps coming back. When we run out of strength, the Church does not hand us a slogan. She hands us her prayers, the ones the saints prayed in their own dark hours. Here are six of them, printed word for word from the old Catholic prayer books where we found them, with the Scripture that has steadied believers for three thousand years and the saints who know what it is to be tired.

A prayer for the Spirit of Fortitude

Strength, in Catholic language, has a proper name: fortitude. It is one of the four cardinal virtues and one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit we receive in Confirmation. The Catechism describes fortitude as the virtue that "ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good." It is not the absence of fear. It is the grace to keep going anyway.

This prayer comes from the "Prayers for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost" in the Manual of Prayers that the bishops of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore published for American Catholics in 1889. It is the best Catholic prayer for strength we know:

Come, O Blessed Spirit of Fortitude, uphold my soul in every time of trouble or adversity. Sustain all my efforts after holiness; strengthen my weakness, give me courage against all the assaults of my enemies, that I may never be overcome, and separated from Thee, my God, my chiefest Good. Amen.

Pray it slowly. It asks for four things: to be held up, to be kept going, to have our weakness strengthened, and never to be separated from God. The last request is the real one. Whatever happens, we ask not to lose him.

The Church's collect for strength: "O God, our refuge and strength"

On the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, the old Roman Missal opened Mass with a short prayer, a collect, that takes its first words from Psalm 45. The 1889 Manual gives it in English and also lists it among its occasional prayers "In any Necessity":

O God, our refuge and strength, who art the Author of all goodness: hear, we beseech Thee, the devout prayers of Thy Church; and grant that what we faithfully ask we may effectually obtain. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The psalm behind it is worth praying too. In the Douay-Rheims it is Psalm 45 (Psalm 46 in most modern Bibles):

Our God is our refuge and strength: a helper in troubles, which have found us exceedingly. Therefore we will not fear, when the earth shall be troubled; and the mountains shall be removed into the heart of the sea.

"Troubles, which have found us exceedingly." Some translations soften it, but the old one says it plainly: trouble found us. We didn't go looking for it. And God is a helper in exactly those troubles.

Anima Christi: "Passion of Christ, strengthen me"

The Anima Christi, "Soul of Christ," is a prayer to Jesus that Catholics have said after Holy Communion since the early 1300s. St. Ignatius of Loyola loved it and recommended it in his Spiritual Exercises, though he did not write it. This is the English of the 1878 Raccolta, number 48:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me: Body of Christ, save me: Blood of Christ, inebriate me: Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me: O good Jesus, hear me: Within thy wounds hide me: Permit me not to be separated from thee. From the malignant enemy defend me: In the hour of my death call me, And bid me come to thee, That, with thy saints, I may praise thee For ever and ever. Amen.

The fifth line is the one to hold onto. In Latin it is Passio Christi, conforta me, and conforta means "make strong," not merely "console." We ask the suffering of Jesus to strengthen us because he has already gone through the worst that can happen to a human being and come out the other side. More on the prayer is on our Anima Christi page.

Even Jesus was strengthened

St. Luke tells us something about the night before the Crucifixion that the other Gospels leave out. In the garden of Gethsemane, after Jesus prayed "not my will, but thine be done," "there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony, he prayed the longer" (Luke 22:43, Douay-Rheims).

The Son of God accepted strength from an angel. There is no shame in being too weak to go on alone. And notice what the strength was for: not to escape, but to pray "the longer."

A prayer for strength in every duty: from the Universal Prayer

The Manual of Prayers prints a long prayer "for all things necessary to salvation," which it says was composed by Pope Clement XI in 1721. Generations of Catholics prayed it after Mass. These lines from the middle ask for strength in plain, practical terms:

Give me strength, O my God, to expiate my offences, to overcome my temptations, to subdue my passions, and to acquire the virtues proper for my state.

O my God, make me prudent in my undertakings, courageous in dangers, patient in affliction, and humble in prosperity.

Grant that I may be ever attentive at my prayers, temperate at my meals, diligent in my employments, and constant in my resolutions.

"Patient in affliction" may be the most needed line in the whole prayer. It does not ask God to remove every hard thing. It asks for the strength to carry them well.

I arise today through God's strength: from St. Patrick's Breastplate

The Breastplate of St. Patrick is an Irish prayer for protection, but its fifth stanza is a morning prayer for strength like no other. Kuno Meyer translated the Old Irish in 1911:

I arise to day Through God's strength to pilot me: God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me, God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak for me, God's hand to guard me, God's way to lie before me, God's shield to protect me, God's host to save me.

Irish tradition gives the prayer to St. Patrick himself; the text we have was probably written down some centuries after him, so its authorship is traditional. Pray these lines when your feet hit the floor on a day you dread. The full prayer is on our St. Patrick's Breastplate page.

Scripture for strength

The Bible is full of promises of strength, nearly always made to people who had none left. These are the passages Catholics have turned to most, in the Douay-Rheims translation.

Isaiah 40: "They shall renew their strength"

It is he that giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force and might to them that are not. Youths shall faint, and labour, and young men shall fall by infirmity. But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah wrote to exiles who had lost their homeland and their temple. "Them that are not" is a striking phrase: God gives might even to those who feel they have ceased to exist.

2 Corinthians 12: "Power is made perfect in infirmity"

St. Paul begged three times to be freed from what he called a "sting of my flesh." The Lord answered:

My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful.

This is the heart of the Catholic understanding of strength. We are not asking God to make us strong so we won't need him. We are asking him to be strong in us.

Philippians 4:13

Many people know this verse as "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The Douay-Rheims reads: "I can do all these things in him who strengtheneth me." The "things" Paul means, as the verses before it show, are being hungry and being full, having plenty and suffering need. It is a verse about endurance in every circumstance.

The saints who were given strength

The saints were not born strong. They were weak people who asked God for strength and received it. These are the ones we ask to pray for us when we have nothing left.

St. Simon of Cyrene, who helped carry the cross

"And as they led him away, they laid hold of one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country; and they laid the cross on him to carry after Jesus" (Luke 23:26). Simon did not volunteer. He was pressed into it on his way in from the fields. Yet he is remembered for all time as the man who helped Christ carry the cross. Ask St. Simon of Cyrene to pray for you when a burden is laid on you that you didn't choose, and to send you a Simon of your own.

Our Lady of Sorrows, who stood by the cross

"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother" (John 19:25). Mary did not faint away and leave; she stood. The Church honors her steadfastness on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, September 15, the day after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Mothers and fathers who watch a child suffer turn to her first. The Seven Sorrows Rosary walks through her griefs one by one.

St. Paul, strong in weakness

Shipwrecked three times, beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and still writing letters of encouragement to others from his cell. St. Paul is the saint for anyone who has to keep going while carrying something God has not taken away.

St. Joan of Arc, for courage

A farm girl from Domrémy who led an army at seventeen and, at nineteen, faced a hostile court of churchmen alone. She was burned at Rouen in 1431, and the Church canonized her in 1920. St. Joan of Arc is the saint to ask for courage to do the right thing when everyone is against you.

St. Monica, for strength to keep praying

St. Monica prayed and wept for years for her son Augustine, who had walked away from the faith. Her son tells us in his Confessions that a bishop consoled her with the words "it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish." He came back and became St. Augustine. Parents praying for a child who has left the Church ask her for the strength not to give up.

And others

St. Michael the Archangel is our strength against evil (see our prayer for protection). St. Maximilian Kolbe found the strength in Auschwitz to offer his life for a stranger. St. Josephine Bakhita, kidnapped and enslaved as a child in Sudan, came through it to faith and forgiveness. St. Rita of Cascia bore a hard marriage and great losses with patience. They each knew weakness. Each of them received strength from God.

How to pray for strength

1. Be honest. Tell God exactly how tired you are. The psalms are full of complaint, and they are inspired Scripture. "I am weak" is a prayer.
2. Keep it short. When you are exhausted, a long prayer can feel like one more task. Repeat one line through the day: "Passion of Christ, strengthen me," or "Come, O Blessed Spirit of Fortitude."
3. Go to the sacraments. In Holy Communion Christ gives us himself as food for the road. Confession lifts burdens no amount of willpower can. If you are seriously ill, the Anointing of the Sick gives, in the Catechism's words, "strengthening, peace and courage to overcome the difficulties that go with the condition of serious illness or the frailty of old age."
4. Let someone help you. Ask a friend, your parish, a priest. Accepting help is not a lack of faith; even Christ accepted Simon's help with the cross.
5. Ask the saints. Choose one saint who carried a burden like yours and ask for their prayers every day for a week.

When strength runs out

Some burdens are too heavy to carry alone, and no prayer is meant to replace real help. If you are worn down by illness, depression or a crisis, please talk to a doctor or someone you trust. If you are in the United States and thinking of harming yourself, call or text 988 at any hour.

Related prayers

• Prayer for anxiety, when worry is draining your strength.
• Prayer for healing and prayer for the sick, for strength in illness.
• Prayer for protection: St. Michael, Psalm 90 and the Breastplate.
• Prayer for grief, for strength after the loss of someone you love.
• The Surrender Novena and the Memorare, for handing over what you can't carry.
• Morning prayer, to begin the day in God's strength.

Come, O Blessed Spirit of Fortitude, strengthen our weakness. St. Simon of Cyrene, Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us. Amen.