One prayer that asks for everything a Christian life needs, from belief to a good death.
A long, complete prayer attributed to Pope Clement XI that covers belief, hope, love, sorrow, duty, and death in a single sweep.
When: When you do not know what to ask for, or as a Sunday prayer for the whole household.
Why: Most days a person prays for the one thing pressing on them. This prayer widens the ask back out to the whole of a life, which is why it has been given to converts and to the dying alike.
Lord, I believe in you: increase my faith. I trust in you: strengthen my trust. I love you: let me love you more and more. I am sorry for my sins: deepen my sorrow.
I worship you as my first beginning, I long for you as my last end, I praise you as my constant helper, and call on you as my loving protector.
Guide me by your wisdom, correct me with your justice, comfort me with your mercy, protect me with your power.
I offer you my thoughts. I offer you, Lord, my thoughts: to be fixed on you; my words: to have you for their theme; my actions: to reflect my love for you; my sufferings: to be endured for your greater glory.
I want to do what you ask of me: in the way you ask, for as long as you ask, because you ask it.
Lord, enlighten my understanding. Lord, enlighten my understanding, strengthen my will, purify my heart, and make me holy.
Help me to repent of my past sins and to resist temptation in the future. Help me to rise above my human weaknesses and to grow stronger as a Christian.
Let me love you, my Lord and my God, and see myself as I really am: a pilgrim in this world, a Christian called to respect and love all those whose lives I touch.
Teach me. Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing that I do your will.
Lord, help me to control my body, to be pure in thought and word and deed, and to keep watch over my senses. Teach me to be humble and to accept the cross.
At the end. Lord, teach me to hope in you, to trust you, to love you. Let me not turn from you. When the end comes, take me to yourself. Amen.