Feb 13, 2008

Morning Offering

I've learned several Morning Offering prayers, and others are listed here. The first prayer was this rhyme taught by my Mother:
Each thought, each word, each deed of mine,
Shall be an act of love Divine.
And everything that I shall do,
Shall be, my God, for love of You.
The second Morning Offering I learned from our pastor of almost 60 years ago, who often came to our grade school classroom to see how well we kids were learning our religion. Once, Father asked us to say the Morning Offering--to see if we had memorized the prayer. None of us knew it (but we did know a short prayer that noted how all our actions were to be according to God's will).

Sister's face drooped like a wilted flower as she saw her students fail this question from the pastor. Father then taught us the importance of the Morning Offering prayer. Finally, he turned sternly to Sister and said he would give her a printed copy of the prayer. He would check on our memorization the next time he returned to our classroom. The Morning Offering my pastor gave us students to memorize is reprinted below:
O Jesus,
through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I offer You my prayers, works,
joys and sufferings
of this day for all the intentions
of Your Sacred Heart,
in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
throughout the world,
in reparation for my sins,
for the intentions of all my relatives and friends,
and in particular
for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen.
After we were married, my husband taught me this third Morning Offering Prayer. It's a good, quick prayer to say anytime during the day.
Everything we do today
Is for the honor and glory and love of God.
O Lord, be with us today and all the days of our lives,
That we may dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever.
The shortest Morning Offering is:
SERVIAM! [I serve (the Lord God)]

3 comments:

Milehimama @ Mama Says said...

We say the same morning offering Father taught you! Except at the end we say "in particular for..." and add in our own prayer requests, plus the souls in Purgatory especially the clergy.

Another one I just made up from the Baltimore catechism for the littles to say until they "graduate" to the big one:
Dear Jesus, help me to know you, love you, and serve you better today so I can be happy in Heaven with you."

Anonymous said...

Do you know where the first prayer, Each thought......., came from? I am trying to find the author as it was a favorite prayer of our family also.

Anonymous said...

My family and I said almost the same prayer, but it was a little different at the end. And we always said it after the dinner prayer.

Each thought, each word, each deed of mine,
shall be an act of love Divine.
And everything that I shall do,
shall be an act of loving You.