Morning prayers

Morning prayers from the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant traditions.

Morning prayer is one of the oldest patterns in Christian devotion. The daily office of the Church begins at dawn with Lauds in the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, with Matins and the First Hour in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, with Morning Prayer (Mattins) in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and with the morning prayers of Luther, Wesley, and the Protestant household tradition. The prayers gathered here are for the start of the day: the daily Offices and Lauds; the Angelus rung at six in the morning; the Trisagion Prayers that open the Orthodox morning office; the BCP Collects for Grace and for Peace; Luther's Morning Prayer from the Small Catechism; Wesley's morning hymns and intercessions; the great morning canticles like the Te Deum; and short scriptural prayers such as the Aaronic Blessing and the protection Psalms 23 and 91. They span the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant traditions, and many of them have been prayed at sunrise by Christians for over a thousand years.