Catholic Morning Prayer: The Morning Offering, Lauds and a Prayer for Today

1. What Is Catholic Morning Prayer?

Catholic morning prayer is any prayer that consecrates the start of the day to God, and the Church offers three main forms: short traditional prayers such as the Sign of the Cross and the Morning Offering, the official Morning Prayer (Lauds) of the Liturgy of the Hours, and personal prayer with Scripture. All three do the same thing: they put God first while the day is still unspoiled.

The habit is as old as the Bible. "O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you, and watch" (Psalm 5:3). Jesus Himself, after a crowded night of healing, rose "a great while before day" and went to a lonely place to pray (Mark 1:35). If the Son of God needed the morning with His Father, so do you.

Be honest about your mornings. For most of us the first act of the day is to reach for the phone, read the news, check the messages, and absorb other people's priorities before we have said one word to God. That habit is quietly forming you. Morning prayer breaks it. It takes as little as sixty seconds, and it is the cheapest, surest change you can make to your spiritual life this week.

This page owns the morning. For prayer in general, including the forms of prayer and how to meditate, read our full guide on how to pray. For the end of the day, go to our page on Catholic night prayer and Compline.

2. A Prayer for Today

A prayer for today is a short prayer that hands this single day to God: its work, its people, its worries and its temptations. Jesus taught us to ask for "this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11) and told us not to be anxious about tomorrow, because "Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day" (Matthew 6:34). Pray one of these now, out loud if you can, and then pray it again tomorrow.

Need a prayer for a situation these do not cover? Our free prayer generator writes a personal prayer for today in a few seconds.

3. The Morning Offering: Full Text and History

The Morning Offering is a short Catholic prayer in which you give God everything in the coming day, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in union with the Sacrifice of the Mass. It is the central prayer of the Apostleship of Prayer, founded in 1844 by the French Jesuit Fr. François-Xavier Gautrelet among young Jesuit students in Vals, France, who wanted to make their ordinary studies an act of apostolic prayer. The Apostleship spread across the world and is now called the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, which publishes the Holy Father's prayer intention for each month.

The Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network also publishes a newer offering in contemporary wording, and its official app, Click To Pray, shows the Pope's intention for the month. Find this month's intention, write it on a card, and pray the Morning Offering with that one intention in mind. You will be praying with Catholics on every continent.

4. What the Morning Offering Means, Line by Line

The Morning Offering turns an ordinary day into a sacrifice offered to God, and each line carries a piece of Catholic teaching. Pray it once slowly with these notes, and it will never feel like a formula again.

• "O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary": you go to Christ the way He came to us, through His mother. Mary adds nothing to His power; she presents your gift the way she presented Him in the Temple (Luke 2:22).
• "my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day": everything counts. The spreadsheet, the nappy, the commute, the headache. St. Paul: "whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). Nothing in your day is too small to offer.
• "for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart": you sign a blank cheque. You let Jesus decide where the grace goes.
• "in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world": at every hour, Mass is being offered somewhere on earth. Your day joins it. This is the priesthood of the baptised in action: offering "your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God" (Romans 12:1).
• "in reparation for my sins": you admit you owe a debt of love, and you start paying it with the day itself.
• "for the intentions of all our associates": you pray for everyone else praying the same prayer. Millions of strangers carry you, and you carry them.
• "the intention recommended this month by the Holy Father": you pray with the Pope for the needs of the whole Church.

Here is the edge in it. Once you have offered the day, you cannot waste it on resentment or lust without noticing you are taking back a gift. That discomfort is grace. Let it work.

The offering takes thirty seconds. Keeping it every day is the hard part. Pro gives you audio-guided prayer sessions you just press play on, audio devotionals for the drive, and offline access for the train with no signal. Get Pro. $49 once, no subscription, 30-day money-back guarantee.

5. Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers

Alongside the Morning Offering, Catholics have long begun the day with the Sign of the Cross, a prayer to their guardian angel, an act of faith and the Glory Be. Learn these by heart and you will always have a morning prayer ready, even half asleep.

Children can learn simpler versions of these; our collection of prayers for children includes morning prayers for kids. To learn more about the angels God has assigned to you, read our guide to angels and guardian angels.

6. Lauds: The Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours

Lauds is the Church's official Morning Prayer, one of the hours of the Liturgy of the Hours (also called the Divine Office or the Breviary). Priests, deacons and religious are bound to pray it, and the Second Vatican Council encouraged lay people to pray the Hours too (Sacrosanctum Concilium 100). The Council called Lauds and Vespers, morning and evening prayer, the "two hinges" on which the daily Office turns (Sacrosanctum Concilium 89). When you pray Lauds, you pray the same psalms on the same morning as the whole Catholic Church across the world.

Lauds takes about fifteen to twenty minutes and follows the same shape every day:

1. Introductory verse. "God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me," followed by the Glory Be. If Lauds is your first prayer of the day, it opens instead with the Invitatory: "Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise," and Psalm 95 (or another invitatory psalm).
2. Hymn. A short hymn of the morning or the season.
3. Psalmody. A morning psalm, a canticle from the Old Testament, and a psalm of praise, each with an antiphon and ending with the Glory Be.
4. Reading. A short passage of Scripture.
5. Responsory. A short call and response drawn from Scripture.
6. The Canticle of Zechariah (the Benedictus). Luke 1:68-79, the high point of Lauds, prayed every morning with its antiphon.
7. Intercessions. Prayers dedicating the day and its work to God.
8. The Our Father.
9. Concluding prayer of the day, and a short blessing or dismissal.

The psalms rotate through a four-week cycle called the Psalter, and the feasts and seasons of the year change the antiphons, readings and prayers. That is why a printed breviary has so many ribbons. The good news: free websites and apps lay out each day's Lauds in order, so you can pray it with nothing but your phone. Try a free online Divine Office that prints the full text of today's Morning Prayer and offers audio to pray along with, or search for "Liturgy of the Hours today" to find other free versions.

Why is the Benedictus prayed every morning? Because it ends with the dawn: "the dawn from on high shall break upon us." Every sunrise is a sign of Christ, the light who comes to those sitting in darkness. You pray it as the real sun comes up.

7. How to Pray Lauds for the First Time

The simplest way to start praying Lauds is to open a free Liturgy of the Hours website or app, which lays out today's Morning Prayer in order, and read it aloud, slowly, from top to bottom. Do not worry about getting it perfect. You will learn the shape within a week.

1. Pick a time and place. The same chair, the same time, before the house wakes or right after the first coffee.
2. Open today's Morning Prayer. Use a free online Office or app that shows the correct day and season for you.
3. Read everything aloud, quietly. The psalms were written to be sung or spoken. Speaking them keeps your mind from drifting.
4. Pause at the Benedictus. Stand for it if you can, as the Church does in choir, and make the Sign of the Cross at its start.
5. Make the intercessions your own. After the printed petitions, add the people and needs of your day.
6. Keep going for 30 days. At first the psalms feel strange. By the end of the month, lines will start to stay with you all day.

If fifteen minutes is too long right now, pray only the Benedictus and the concluding prayer of the day for a week. Our general guide to how to pray explains how the whole Liturgy of the Hours fits together, from the Office of Readings to Night Prayer.

Praying the psalms with no one beside you can feel like talking to the ceiling. Pro gives you a circle of believers to pray with, audio-guided prayer sessions, and in-depth Bible studies that open up the psalms you will pray every week. Get Pro for $49, paid once, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

8. A 5-Minute Catholic Morning Prayer Routine

A 5-minute Catholic morning routine is short enough to keep on your worst morning and solid enough to anchor the day. Pray it before you look at your phone. Leave the phone in another room overnight if that is what it takes.

1. On waking (10 seconds): make the Sign of the Cross before your feet touch the floor. Say "Jesus, I give You this day."
2. Morning Offering (30 seconds): pray prayer 5 above, slowly.
3. One psalm verse (1 minute): read one verse from the list in section 10, then read it again and let one word stay with you.
4. The Our Father (1 minute): pray it slowly enough to mean "this day our daily bread".
5. Name three people (1 minute): say each name to God and ask one thing for each.
6. Prayer for today (1 minute): pray prayer 1 or 2 above.
7. Guardian angel (20 seconds): pray prayer 8 and walk into your day.

That is five minutes. Do it for seven days straight before you add anything. A small prayer you keep beats a big plan you drop.

9. A 15-Minute Catholic Morning Prayer Routine

A 15-minute Catholic morning routine adds Scripture and the Church's own prayer to the basics. This is the routine to grow into once the 5-minute version is a habit.

1. Silence (1 minute): sit, make the Sign of the Cross, and say nothing. Remember that God is looking at you with love.
2. Morning Offering (1 minute).
3. The day's Gospel (5 minutes): read the Gospel of today's Mass. Read it twice. Ask: what is Jesus saying to me today? Write one line down.
4. Lauds, short form (5 minutes): pray the psalms or the Benedictus from today's Morning Prayer. On busy days, the Benedictus alone.
5. Intercession (2 minutes): pray for your family, your work, your parish, your enemies and the Pope's intention for the month.
6. Resolution (1 minute): choose one concrete act for today. One kindness, one avoided sin, one call.
7. Close with Mary: a Hail Mary, then the Sign of the Cross.

Once this is steady, add the full Lauds, or daily Mass once a week, or a decade of the Rosary. Our guide to praying the Rosary shows how. The aim is a rule of prayer you keep for life, which is what every saint had.

10. Bible Verses for Morning Prayer

These Bible verses are short enough to pray on waking and strong enough to carry a whole day. Choose one a week and learn it by heart.

• "O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you, and watch." (Psalm 5:3)
• "Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul." (Psalm 143:8)
• "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (Lamentations 3:22-23)
• "Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." (Psalm 90:14)
• "This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24)
• "And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed." (Mark 1:35)
• "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." (Psalm 30:5)

Psalm 63 ("O God, you are my God, I seek you") has been sung at morning prayer for centuries and appears at Sunday Lauds in the Liturgy of the Hours. Read it tomorrow.

11. When Mornings Are Hard: Dread, Anxiety and Depression

If mornings are the worst part of your day, you are not a bad Catholic, and your faith is not too weak. Morning dread is common with anxiety and depression, and both are real illnesses. They do not come from sin or from weak faith. Pray what you can, and get the care you need.

Talk to your doctor if the heaviness lasts more than two weeks, and keep taking any medicine you have been prescribed. A Catholic therapist can help you pray and heal at the same time. Our guides to Catholic prayer for anxiety and depression and the Catholic faith go much further.

12. How Do Other Christians Pray in the Morning?

Christians of every tradition pray in the morning, and the forms are closer than many people think. All of them draw on the psalms and the Our Father.

• Anglicans and Episcopalians pray Morning Prayer (Mattins) from the Book of Common Prayer, which Thomas Cranmer built in large part from the medieval Latin Office, including the Benedictus.
• Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians pray Matins and the Hours in church and keep a rule of morning prayers at home, usually before an icon corner, beginning with the Trisagion prayers.
• Evangelical Protestants often keep a "quiet time": Bible reading and personal prayer first thing in the morning. Catholics can learn from their love of Scripture.
• Catholics have all of these: the Office, the Morning Offering, personal prayer and Scripture, plus the Mass, offered somewhere in the world every hour, which the Morning Offering joins.

For the wider comparison between traditions, see our guide to Catholic and Protestant beliefs. Whatever your background, the call is the same: seek God first (Matthew 6:33), and seek Him tomorrow morning.