These prayers are offered in the spirit of our common experience - every one of us has been borne by a mother. Our mothers may be part of our everyday lives or live far away. Perhaps our communications are strained. Maybe our mother is no longer living. We may know of a young mother, living in the chaos of a newborn, who needs our prayers. Or one who lives in the darkness of dementia. These prayers from the heart are offered for mothers everywhere.

Prayer for a Birth Mother, from an Adoptive Mother

Prayer for a Single Mother

Prayer of Gratitude for my Mother

Prayer for a Mother with Alzheimer's Disease

Prayer for an Expectant Mother

Prayer for a Mother who has died

A Mothers' Day Prayer

Prayer After the Death of My Mother

Prayer of an Infertile Couple

Prayer for Working Mothers

The Cathedral of Home

Prayer of a Mother whose children are no longer at home

Prayer While Doing Laundry

Prayer of a Mother concerned about her adult children

Prayer for a Birth Mother, from an Adoptive Mother

Loving God, how can I thank you for the generous woman who gave us her child? Our years of sorrow and emptiness ended with a phone call and a new child in our home. We rejoiced in the utter happiness that this birth mother - and her child - gave us then. We have received so much joy over the years.

We think of this special mother, Lord, this generous woman who bore our child. The one who went through the discomfort of pregnancy and the pains of birth - only to hand her child over to someone else to love and care for.

Please, God, bless the life of this incredibly noble woman. She gave me the great gift of motherhood, and I can imagine the cost to her: an empty spot in her own heart where this child we somehow share, will always abide.

Bless her life, dear Lord. Give her an abundance of happiness and love and family. Please let her feel the prayers we have for her on each birthday of our child, each Mother's Day. We think of her with reverence and love and inexpressible gratitude.

Prayer for a Single Mother

Dear God, she seems to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders, but to carry it more lightly than I think I would. I see her balancing work and home, money and no money, friends who no longer make time to see her, and I send up a prayer for her.

Her old friends have moved on with their lives, and in truth, she doesn't have much in common with them anymore. She is lonely, loving God. She would like company but doesn't want to make time for new relationships because her waking hours are already full: she is a mother. She walks when gas is too expensive for the car and forgoes new clothes so her child can have shoes.

This is not how her life started out, but circumstances changed from her life of privilege to this life she embraces so fully. Her life is difficult and she seems so tired much of the time, but I am inspired by the love she has for her child.

Give her the strength to put in long hours each day; the courage to face those who dismiss her with blaming and knowing nods; the ability to maintain her loving life at home; and the deepest knowledge in her heart that you love her.

Gratitude for my Mother

Dear Lord, today I turn to you to give you thanks for my mother. With your own gift of life, she bore me in her womb and gave me life. She tenderly, patiently cared for me and taught me to walk and talk. She read to me and made me laugh. No one delighted in my successes more; no one could comfort me better in my failures. I am so grateful for how she mothered me and mentored me, and even disciplined me.

Please bless her, Lord, and comfort her. Help her loving heart to continue to love and give of herself to others. Strengthen her when she is down and give her hope when she is discouraged.

Most of all, Lord, on this Mother's Day, give my mother the graces she most needs and desires today. I ask you this, in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior forever and ever.

For a Mother with Alzheimer's Disease

"Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding,
my entire will... Give me only your love and your grace and that is enough for me." Ignatius of Loyola

Loving God,

Please bless every mother who has Alzheimer’s disease.

She was with us children as we learned to walk.
-- Guide her uncertain steps today as her balance fails her.

She taught us to cross streets and be safe.
-- Help her not to get lost, even in her familiar surroundings.

She held us close in the terrors of the darkest nightmares.
-- May she not be frightened today by the reality of her life, which is strange and totally out of her control.

She cooked thousands of meals over decades of time.
-- Please allow her to accept the caring hand that now feeds her.

She changed diapers, Lord, and served you each time she did.
-- Please give her now the humility and grace to be served in this way.

Loving God, the familiar eyes of my mother
now respond with a blank stare.
She is unable to carry on a conversation,
to ask about her family
or to serve in the central role she has in our family.

Help her accept the surrender of her life these days.
Open her prayerful heart and fading mind
to be aware of your presence with her,
perhaps now closer than ever.

Give us, her family, the patience, courage and acceptance
to love her as she is and to support her in her daily needs.

For an Expectant Mother

Father of Life,

We thank you for the expectant mother who carries this growing hope in her life and into our world. Bless her and the living promise of this child and help her to manage the mix of joys, fears and anxieties she may have about the time ahead.

As she watches her body change, may she grow in your own loving kindness and compassion. Let her be inspired by Mary and Joseph who model a loving family life and give her the courage to guide her children in a faith-filled life.

Be with her in her gladness these days and deepen her faith, so that labor might be a time of strength and prayer. Guard the health of her baby and give her the peace of mind that may so often seem elusive in this time.

With your grace, she will be ready for the end of this expectant time and ready to take on the joys and challenges of parenthood.

May she praise you with Mary:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit exalts in God my savior.”

For a Mother who has died

Dear Lord, relying on your promises to us, I turn to you in trust that my mother is with you and that she is enjoying your loving embrace. You alone know how she loved the best she could and how she faithfully endured the struggles that she faced. You know the graces you gave her and you know the grace she was for me and for so many. For all the ways she truly loved the way you loved her, please reward her, Lord. May she enjoy the communion of all her family and friends who are with you.

Lord, I know my mother still loves us who are still here on earth. I ask you that you might listen to her fervent prayers for us. Help me to grow into a new and deeper relationship with my mother now, as I long for the day when we will both meet in your embrace - freed from all that might have hindered our relationship on earth, knowing and understanding everything we did not know or understand on this earth.

I ask you this with faith in the resurrection, trusting my mother's love, and desiring that she know my love for her. Amen.

The Cathedral of Home

Dearest Lord,
I sit here quietly in the my room, opening my heart to you. It is so silent! But if I listen intently, I become aware of the breathing of my children in beds down the hall. They sigh softly or move in their beds quietly, nestled warmly into their dreams. These most intimate sounds, coming from the people I love most in the world, transform this room. It becomes a place of honoring you, a cathedral of joy and gratitude toward you for giving me these children.

May I always treasure these gifts you have given me. In each moment of loving them, from kisses to laundry to kitchen, may I be aware of your presence in my life in this way. Thank you!

A Mothers' Day Prayer

I [we] thank you, Creator of us all, for my [our] mother[s].

I thank you that she gave me life and nourtured me all those years. She gave me my faith, helping me to know you and to know Jesus and his ways. She taught me how to love and how to sacrifice for others. She taught me that it was okay to cry and that I should always tell the truth.

Bless her with the graces she needs and which you want to give her today. Help her to feel precious in your eyes today and to know that I love her. Give her strength and courage, compassion and peace.

Bless her this day with your love.

Prayer After the Death of My Mother

My mother is gone, loving God. I am so grateful I was at her side as she breathed her last, her agony complete. She lived a full and complete life and all of us felt relieved, for a moment, when she finally slipped away to be at your side.

But now I am left with the sorrow and grief. My mother is gone. My mother who had been a part of my life for each day of it, is not here. I have such a sadness and it surprises me.

In her years of Alzheimer's, it seemed as if she died a little each day. The differences were almost invisible, but real. She responded less, sang less, prayed less. She became unsteady on her feet, then she couldn't walk, then she no longer spoke. Finally, her loving eyes gazed on me with no recognition.

Watching that decline was hard over the years and I grieved every time I saw her. I was letting her go with each visit as she slowly moved through the sacred "thin spaces" to be with us a little less each day, and as she drew a little closer to you each day.

Help me to rejoice with my mother in her new life of the resurrection. This is what her faith taught her and help that belief bring me comfort in my sorrow.

For Working Mothers

My Loving Creator,

You know how really tired I am. On days when things are really frantic, I consider how you made the world in seven days -- and then I try to remember that you aren't asking me to re-create that feat.

Please help me to remain a loving mother to my children and to keep some balance in my life. Help me to remember that you are with me in every packed hour of every day. As I am finishing a work project or planning dinner or buying the kids shoes, (sometimes all at the same time) help me to remember your loving care for me and let me sometimes stop for a moment and just wallow in that.

Most of all, my caring Father, let me remember to ask for help and to rely on you for strength when I have none left; for patience when mine is so often gone; and for the wisdom and endless well of compassion and love I need in my job as mother.

Prayer of an Infertile Couple

Creator of us all, only you know how much we want children. Please, please bless us with a child; a child to lavish our love on and care for in so many ways. It is our dream and I pray to you with an aching heart.

I assumed that when we were ready for babies, we would have them. How could it be that month after month I feel so sharply the pain and disappointment of that "failure." The Bible does not comfort with words like "barren" to describe that ancient disgrace.

I am happy for our friends who call us with the joyous news of their expectations, but it is like another pain in my heart. I want to be there to celebrate with them but my battered emotions are numb to the joy of another baby shower, another baby gift.

We want to adopt, but we are not ready yet. Heal us, loving God, from the sense that if we adopt, we are somehow "abandoning" our child -- the child we have not had but long for so deeply.

Give us the patience to support each other in our sorrow and may this pain bring us together in the grace of our marriage. Bless us with ability to see more clearly where you are calling us to serve in this time in our life, when our sorrow sometimes outweighs our generosity and our self-focus lets us forget others. Be with us, heal us and let us feel your love blessing this marriage.

My life is and has been so very full. Each day it has been shaped by the miracle of being a mother. For so many years my every moment was intently set on the world of raising my children. I was so keenly aware that my family was some wondrous way that you and I share our love for each other. You have given me my children and husband as a way of showing me your great love - and the way I love my family was a response to you.

But Lord, I am lonesome now. I miss my children! They are growing and moving off and they no longer rely on me in the same way. My time is less taken up with them and at moments I just want to turn back the clock. Help me to see what you have in store for me now. You are doing something new in me. You are preparing me for a new phase, a new service and a new way of loving you.

Keep my eyes clear and my heart open to the ways you call me, Lord. And help me always to be grateful for the many gifts of each day.

Prayer While Doing Laundry

I find you so close to me right here, dear Lord. Surrounded by the dirt and scattered clothing of my family, I find this an ideal spot to pray with you. No one comes near here so it is quiet, and it gives me a chance to reflect on the many blessings of my life.As I pick up their clothing and sort it, I ask you to give each of them what is needed most in their lives.

I fill the washer with my husband's shirts and socks, and ask that you bless him as he wears them to work each day. Give him the grace to see that his work is holy and open his eyes to see the sacredness of each moment of life.

As I sort the tiny socks or the overalls of the children, I smile and remember how blessed I am to have them in my life.

I sort the larger teenage clothing and wonder at how fast these clothes have become larger sizes - and how quickly children grow up. I ask your help as I guide them through each new phase of their lives.

Give me a love that is endless, a heart that forgives them and the humility to ask for their forgiveness when that is right. Help me keep them from danger, and help me to let go and trust you when it is time to do that.

I try so hard to be perfect but lead me to remember that it is here in the smudged, disorganized and disheveled part of life that I find you the nearest.

Thank you, dearest Lord, for so much grace in my life!

Prayer of a Mother concerned about her adult children

As I turn to you, Lord, my heart is troubled. You know the journey that brought my children to where they are today. I am so sorry for whatever my husband or I might have done wrong, Lord. Our children don't seem to practice the faith we tried to hand on to them. Their values are so different from ours. It breaks my heart to see them passing those same values on to their children, my grandchildren.

Oh, Lord, I place them in your hands. I surrender the judgments and anger that can fill me. I know that, at times, in my frustration and desire to help them, I have pushed them farther away. Give me the graces I need to change my heart. Fill me with your mercy and forgiveness for my sins so that I might grow in the ability to forgive and embrace my kids with compassionate love. Let me be a healer of wounds, rather than a wounder. Let me build bridges of understanding. I know that is the only way I will be able, with your grace, to heal our relationship.

Father of Love, help my kids grow in gratitude to you. Help them to find you in their busy lives. Help me to affirm them and support them with love, that they might recognize authentic faith and love, and turn to you in their time of need.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you.