Lenten Prayers: Catholic Prayers for Lent, for Every Day and Every Friday

Lord Jesus, you fasted forty days in the desert for me.
During this Lent, help me to pray more, to give up what keeps me from you,
and to love the poor. Turn my heart back to you. Amen.

Lord and Master of my life, keep from me a spirit of idleness, of discouragement, of ambition, and of idle talk.

And give me Thy servant a spirit of temperance, of humility, of patience, and of love.

Yea, Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge or blame my brother; for Thou art blessed for evermore. Amen.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy. And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity.
Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Now therefore saith the Lord: Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning.
And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil.

Lord, as I fast today, let my hunger remind me of my hunger for you.
Help me to give up not only food but also my sins, my impatience and my selfishness.
Let my fast become love for those who have nothing. Amen.

When the body therefore fasts from food, let the mind fast from vices, and pass judgment upon all earthly cares and desires according to the law of its King.

And when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.
But thou, when thou fastest anoint thy head, and wash thy face;
That thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret, will repay thee.

Lord, everything I have comes from you.
Open my hands and my heart to the poor this Lent, and let me see your face in theirs. Amen.

Is not this rather the fast that I have chosen? loose the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, let them that are broken go free, and break asunder every burden.
Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harbourless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him, and despise not thy own flesh.

Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, while before thy face I humbly kneel, and with burning soul pray and beseech thee to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, and charity, true contrition for my sins, and a firm purpose of amendment; the while I contemplate with great love and tender pity thy five wounds, pondering over them within me, whilst I call to mind the words which David, thy prophet, said of thee, my Jesus: “They pierced my hands and my feet; they numbered all my bones.” (Psalm 21:17–18)

For he saith: In an accepted time have I heard thee; and in the day of salvation have I helped thee. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.