• Nav Social Menu

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
  • About
  • Humble Handmaid
    • Substack
    • Archives
  • Speaking
  • Contact

Erin Franco

Morning prayer

Humble Handmaid

Share
Pin
Post
Email
Print
2009 15 Oct

I love to pray in the morning–especially in the car when I’m on my way to work.

When I pray in the morning, I feel like I am wrapping my day in prayer (and my husband’s day, whether he knows it or not). I also feel a deep peace that I am starting the day off pointing to God as the center and rock of my life.

I find that by the time I leave work at the end of the day, I often have the “psychological effects” of the morning prayer wearing off. I’m generally tired, grumpy and hungry when I get in the car to go home. So I usually make myself pray during my short little car ride home to bless the evening, too.

I know that having kids will generally make me (and my husband) even more tired and grumpy by the end of the day, so I am trying to start exercising my spiritual muscles now! When I am tired, I get very quiet and much less responsive in conversations, and my Good Listener skills go (make that fly) out the nearest window. Taking that home with me isn’t fair to Michael, and it won’t be fair to my family.

I still wish that I had made a much bigger effort to be a good listener and a cheerful personality at home in college. During my last two years of college, I was often so tired and stressed out by the time I made it home at night that I barely spoke to any of my roommates on many days! (Lacey, Kim and Emily: If you are reading this, I am so sorry! 🙂

Usually I like to pray “free form,” but sometimes going back to the beautiful, well-written prayers we Catholics have such an abundance of is really wonderful. Those prayers remind me to be more specific, to move out of myself, and to realize that praying for my day is actually blessing and enriching the day for others.

Here is my very favorite “non free form” prayer for the morning, courtesy of The Catholic Devotional, one of those free little pamphlets you can find in the back of many Catholic churches:
* * * * *

Dear Lord, help me to remove from my mind every thought or opinion which You would not sanction, every feeling from my heart which You would not approve. 
Grant that I may spend the hours of the day gladly working with You according to Your will. 
Help me just for today and be with me in it. In the long hours of work, that I may not grow weary or slack in serving You. 
In conversations that they may not be to me occasions of uncharitableness. 
In the day’s worries and disappointments, that I may be patient with myself and with those around me. 
In moments of fatigue and illness, that I may be mindful of theirs rather than of myself. 
In temptations, that I may be generous and loyal, so that when the day is over I may lay it at Your feet, with its successes which are all Yours, and its failures which are all my own, and feel that life is real and peaceful, and blessed when spent with you as the Guest of my soul. Amen. 
* * * * *

Share
Pin
Post
Email
Print

Related

Leave a Comment · Last Updated: May 29, 2015

Previous Post: « Previous Post
Next Post: Next Post »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Hi there!

I'm a south Louisiana girl, Catholic wife, writer, speaker, and mother of six. Since I started my blog way back in 2009, life has been a roller coaster of babies, plot twists and a plane crash or two. I've been chronicling things here as I've been learning to love and suffer and laugh and trust in the goodness of God in the ordinary and the extraordinary--with a little espresso and a lot of Divine Mercy. Read More…

Let’s Connect

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Browse Archives by Category

  • Book reviews
  • Domestic Church
  • Homeschooling
  • Humble Handmaid
  • Interior Life
  • Marriage
  • Motherhood
  • NFP
  • Podcast
  • Radio
  • Saints

Popular in the Archives

Saints were people too

How To Tell Those D-Words Where To Go

Why I Don’t Hate NFP Anymore

How Domestic Church Changed My Marriage

© 2025 · Erin Franco · Humble Handmaid · All Rights Reserved