What prayers should all Catholics know?

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Aside From:

Our Father
Hail Mary
Hail Holy Queen
Glory Be
Sign of the Cross
The two creeds
Act of faith/hope/love/contrition
Prayers in the Holy Mass
Prayer of St Francis
Guardian Angel
Prayer of St. Michael
 
Those prayers which you mentioned are standard prayers in the Western Roman rite. To prevent your prayer life from being stale, when the time comes, you might want to explore the prayers of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

But, I should have first said the Psalms.Yes, it’s been hard for me to get “into” the psalms. I think these have to be carefully studied, perhaps with a commentary nearby, to flush out the meaning of each of the psalms. You know, the book of Psalms is used every Sunday, and some weekdays and other special occasions. It is really worthwhile, I think, to work on the Psalms until their full meaning sinks in and becomes a comfortable part of one’s spirituality. I’ve recently become convinced of this, but I’m not up to that level of understanding – but it’s a goal of mije to get there.

“I was glad when they said unto me, we shall go up to the house of the LORD.” This is rich with historical, theological, and eschatological meaning. Do you just “go to church” or are you really glad ? Are the people around you glad? Why should the Mass worship of God excite us? Because Jesus wants to give himself to us, in his word and in his body and blood.

You can add another dimension to your prayers by looking up musical versions of the psalms on youtube,com.

for example

Laudete Dominum (praise the LORD)

Then there’s the popular HaNDEL’s Messiah. This is my favorite recording (all scriptural or scripturally based)

https://www.amazon.com/Handel-Nevil...TF8&qid=1543996327&sr=8-2&keywords=messiah+cd
 
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Prayer is a gift .

As the Catechism teaches " Prayer is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves ."

Prayer is not a monologue . It is part of an encounter between oneself and God made possible by the indwelling Spirit .

I see the awareness of this reality to be prior to any use of “prayers” .

“Abba! Father!”

(God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”)

“Jesus is Lord !”

(No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.)
 
I’m a fairly new Catholic. And my father/mother is still only 2 years since they became Catholic (I became Catholic approx. 4 years ago).
And I had to teach them pretty much all of the prayers mentioned here. My father still just prays grace in a way that he desires to be: “Thank you Lord for this meal. We pray in the Name of our Lord.” His prayer changes daily lol.
So this is a continuing journey. And I’m teaching them everything as well- and I am learning everything as well.

A prayer I would suggest to you all is a novena- I pray a novena to St. Cecilia. I made a small chaplet out of beads and strung them. She is my patron saint, and I devoted myself so much to her so that I eventually dedicated my middle name to be in honor of her name.

Pax Christi!
 
If you know all these prayers plus Grace Before Meals (and maybe Grace After Meals) by heart, then you are ahead of the majority of Catholics in the pews at Sunday Mass. We recently started saying the Prayer of St Michael after some Sunday Masses at the request of the Archbishop, and it’s interesting to see who in the pews can just rattle off the prayer and who is frantically grabbing for a missalette to read it off the back.

I myself don’t know the acts of Faith, Hope and Love by heart yet, nor the Prayer of St Francis (which wasn’t actually written by St Francis anyway). Also, I’m not sure if I could recite the Profession of Faith by exact memory as it has been through wording changes and I generally say the Apostles’ Creed when I pray my rosaries.

I think once you get past the basic list of Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Sign of the Cross, it’s up to the individual Catholic what enriches his or her prayer life. For example, if someone prays the Rosary a lot then they probably know the Hail Holy Queen. Somebody else who doesn’t have a Marian devotion might not know the Hail Holy Queen. Some people also just don’t like prewritten prayers and are more likely to converse with God in a free-form way.
 
  • The Divine Praises
  • O salutaris hostia
  • Pange Lingua
  • “O Sacrament most holy, O Sacrament divine; all praise and all thanksgiving, be every moment Thine!”
 
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You have a good list. I also like to pray the Fatima Pardon Prayer.

My God,
I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee!
I beg pardon for those who do not believe,
do not adore, do not hope,
and do not love Thee.
Amen.

I often pray this one mentally, while driving.
 
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