Prayers for the Depressed

Prayers for the Depressed

Therese J. Borchard  shares seven prayers to encourage you when you are lonely, depressed, anxious or have an urgent need for peace.

The Third Step Prayer

God, I offer myself to Thee … to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.

Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.

May I do Thy will always!

The Memorare

Remember O Most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence, I fly to you, O Virgin of virgins, my mother.

To you I come; before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful.

O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy, hear and answer me.

Amen.

The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.

Amen.

Prayer by John Henry Newman

Dear Jesus,

Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others; the light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine; it will be you, shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.

Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.

Amen.

Prayer by Thomas Merton

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

St. Teresa of Avila’s “Bookmark”

Let nothing disturb you.

Let nothing frighten you.

All things are passing.

God alone is changeless He who has patience wants for nothing He who has God has all things.

God alone suffices.

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury,pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek?

To be consoled as to console?

To be understood as to understand?

To be loved as to love?

For it is in giving that we receive?

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned?

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

Don't Give Up