A Prayer for My Children

A prayer for my children is the daily act by which a father or a mother lifts each child by name before God and commits him to the keeping of His providence. It is among the oldest and most natural of all prayers, for the love of a parent reaches further than the parent's own arm can reach, and only God can guard a child everywhere and always. We give below a traditional prayer for one's children, in the manner of St Monica, who by long years of prayer won the conversion of her son; and we say a word on how to pray it with confidence rather than with fear.

A traditional prayer for my children

O God, the Father of all,
I commit to Thee the children Thou hast given me.
They are Thine before they are mine,
and Thou lovest them more than I am able to love them.

Keep them this day in soul and body.
Guard them from sin and from every harm.
Set Thy holy angels about them,
that nothing may hurt them, and that they may walk in Thy ways.

Grant that they may know Thee, love Thee, and serve Thee,
and so come at last, with me and with all I love,
to the joy that hath no end.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pray it slowly, naming each child where the prayer says the children Thou hast given me. It is fitting to add the Guardian Angel prayer for each one, since the Church teaches that God appoints to every soul an angel to keep it.

A mother's prayer for her children

The prayer above may be said by either parent; but the Church has always known a particular grace in a mother's prayer for her children, and the figure of that prayer is St Monica. For nearly thirty years she wept and prayed over Augustine, who had fallen into heresy and a disordered life and would hear nothing of the faith. She did not abandon him; she followed him, laid him daily before God, and was told by a bishop that the child of those tears could never perish. She lived to see him baptised. A mother who fears for a wayward son or daughter prays not into the dark but into the same providence that did not refuse Monica.

A traditional form of her intercession may be added:

St Monica, mother of St Augustine, who by thy perseverance in prayer
didst obtain the conversion of thy son: obtain for me the like grace
for the children I now name before God, that none of them may be lost,
but that all may turn to Him and be saved. Amen.

A prayer for the protection of children

When the prayer is said chiefly for protection — against accident, against bad company, against the dangers of the world and of the soul — it leans naturally upon the guardian angels and upon the psalms. The ninetieth psalm, Qui habitat, is the ancient prayer of the Church against all peril, and a parent may make its words his own for his children:

For He hath given His angels charge over thee;
to keep thee in all thy ways.
In their hands they shall bear thee up:
lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

This is from Psalm 90 in the Douay-Rheims, the same psalm the Church places at Compline each night to guard her children through the hours of darkness. To ask God to set His holy angels about them is not a pious flourish but a request grounded in His own word.

How to pray for your children day by day

A prayer for one's children is not a charm to be said once in alarm, but a daily lifting of the family before God. A few customs help:

• Pray by name, and by need. General prayers are good; a child prayed for by name, with his present trouble named too, is better.
• Make a fixed time. The Morning Offering is a natural place to commend the children for the coming day; night prayer, to give thanks and ask their keeping through the dark.
• Persevere. Monica's was a prayer of decades. Our Lord taught that we ought always to pray, and not to faint (Luke 18:1). A prayer for a child that seems unanswered is not a prayer refused.
• Add the saints. Beside St Monica, parents commend their children to St Joseph, guardian of the Holy Family, and to the child's own guardian angel.
• Entrust, do not dictate. We ask God to save and keep our children; we leave to Him the manner and the hour, asking too His guidance for the way each one should go. This is the difference between anxious worry and confident entrustment.

Praying with confidence, not with fear

The deepest thing a parent can know in this prayer is that the children are God's before they are ours, and that He loves them with a love past our measuring. A mother's heart fears a thousand things she cannot guard against; but she is not asked to guard against them. She is asked to hand the child over, day after day, to One who can. Cast all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you (1 Peter 5:7). To pray for our children is to take them up in the morning, give them to God, and take them back from His hand at night — and to do this for as long as we live, knowing that what we cannot reach, He holds.

The patron saints of children

When a parent prays for a child, he does not pray alone. The Church gives, beside the guardian angels, particular saints to whom children and their parents are commended. These are the chief of them:

• St Joseph, foster-father of the Child Jesus and head of the Holy Family, patron of fathers and of the whole household, who reared and protected the Son of God himself.
• The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our mother, Mater amabilis and Star of the Sea, to whom Christians have always entrusted their children, that she may keep them as she kept her own Son.
• St Monica, patroness of mothers and of all who pray for wayward children, whose tears for St Augustine were not refused.
• St Nicholas of Myra, the bishop famed for his secret gifts and his protection of the young, long honoured as a patron of children.
• The Holy Innocents, the infants of Bethlehem slain by Herod in place of Christ, the first martyrs, whose feast the Church keeps on the twenty-eighth of December and who are invoked for little children.
• St Gerard Majella and St Raymund Nonnatus, invoked by mothers for safe childbirth and for the children of the womb.

A parent may add a short word of intercession to any of these:

Holy Patrons of children, St Joseph, St Monica, and Holy Innocents,
pray for the children I commend to God, that they may be kept from harm
and grow up to know, love, and serve Him. Amen.

What does the Bible say about children?

Scripture treats children as a gift of God and a trust, and it lays on parents the duty of raising them in the faith. A few words may steady a parent who prays:

• Children are a gift, not a possession: Behold the inheritance of the Lord are children: the reward, the fruit of the womb (Psalm 126:3, Douay-Rheims).
• God knows each child from the beginning: Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee (Jeremiah 1:5).
• Parents are charged to teach them: And thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house (Deuteronomy 6:7); and fathers, bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
• Our Lord himself blessed them and warned against scandalising them: Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God (Mark 10:14); whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones... it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck (Matthew 18:6).
• The angels of children behold the Father's face: their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father (Matthew 18:10) — the very ground of the guardian-angel devotion.

These verses are why a parent's prayer is not anxious bargaining but the handing-back to God of what was His gift to begin with. A children's Catholic Bible, or simply reading these passages aloud at family prayer, lets a child hear God's own word about himself.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good daily prayer for my children?

The traditional prayer given above — commending the children to God, asking His angels to guard them, and praying that they may know, love, and serve Him — serves well as a daily prayer. Pray it each morning, naming each child, and add the Guardian Angel prayer for each one. The point is constancy, not length.

Is there a specifically Catholic prayer for children's protection?

Yes. Catholic tradition leans on the guardian angels and on Psalm 90 (He hath given His angels charge over thee) for protection. A parent asks God to set His holy angels about each child and recalls that the Church appoints an angel to keep every soul. St Joseph, protector of the Holy Family, is also invoked.

Why pray to St Monica for my children?

St Monica is the patron of mothers and of those who pray for wayward children. By nearly thirty years of tears and prayer she obtained the conversion of her son, St Augustine. Parents who fear for a child who has left the faith ask her intercession because her own long prayer was heard.

What if I have prayed for my child for years with no answer?

Monica prayed for almost thirty years before Augustine was converted. Our Lord taught that we ought always to pray, and not to faint. A prayer for a child that seems unanswered is not refused; it is held. Persevere, and entrust the manner and the hour to God.

Can a father pray this prayer too?

Yes. The prayer is given for either parent. A father commends his children to God exactly as a mother does, and joins St Joseph, guardian of the Holy Family, to his prayer. The grace particularly named in a mother's prayer does not exclude the father's; both are commanded to bring up their children in the discipline and correction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

Who is the patron saint of children?

There is no single patron saint of children; the Church gives several. St Joseph is patron of fathers and of the household; St Monica of mothers and of those who pray for wayward children; St Nicholas of Myra is long honoured as a protector of the young; and the Holy Innocents, the infants slain by Herod, are invoked for little children. The Blessed Virgin Mary is entrusted with children above all.

What does the Bible say about praying for children?

Scripture calls children the inheritance of the Lord (Psalm 126:3) and charges parents to raise them in the faith (Deuteronomy 6:7; Ephesians 6:4). Our Lord said, Suffer the little children to come unto me (Mark 10:14), and that their angels always see the face of my Father (Matthew 18:10). To pray for our children is to give back to God the gift He first gave to us.

For more, see prayer for a happy death.

For more, see prayer for conversion.

Iter Fidei serves the prayers, psalms and devotions, in Latin and English with audio. Download it here.

Sources. Scripture quotations are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (Psalm 90; Psalm 126:3; Jeremiah 1:5; Deuteronomy 6:7; Mark 10:14; Matthew 18:6, 18:10; Luke 18:1; 1 Peter 5:7; Ephesians 6:4). The patrons of children follow the traditional Roman Martyrology and the saints' feasts (St Joseph, St Monica, St Nicholas, the Holy Innocents, St Gerard Majella, St Raymund Nonnatus). The life and intercession of St Monica follow St Augustine's Confessions (Book IX) and the traditional Roman accounts of her feast. The doctrine of the guardian angels is that of the traditional catechisms and the Roman Breviary.