The Morning Offering
Have you ever wondered how we are pray for all those for whom we have promised to pray? As nuns we are bound to pray not only for those who ask our prayers but for the whole world. How do we fit it all in? One way we do this, besides the adoring rosary, is through our morning offering.
We begin every morning before Lauds with a simple prayer called "The Morning Offering". The morning offering is not a specifically monastic practice. In fact, Pope John Paul II said that the Morning Offering is "of fundamental importance in the life of each and every one of the faithful". Its purpose is to offer up the whole day at its very beginning, consecrating the day to God. Our consecration at our Solemn Profession offers up and consecrates to God the whole of our lives. Our very life becomes a prayer, worship. The morning offering again renews this gift for each new day. Our particular morning offering mentions specifically that we offer to God through the hands of Mary all of our "prayers, communions, rosaries and good works" for all of our "families, relatives, friends and benefactors". Not one of our families, relatives friends or benefactors? We offer up our prayers also for the "sick and the dying, for the poor souls in purgatory and all poor sinners". Not sure you classify? (You do! We are all poor sinners!) But just in case, we also pray for "those for whom we have promised and are bound to pray"--which is just about everyone!
The morning offering is just one more way "we've got you covered".
Below is our morning offering:
O adorable Trinity, we offer you, through the hands of our Blessed Mother, all our prayers, communions, rosaries and good works in behalf of our families, relatives, friends and benefactors; for the sick and the dying; for the poor souls in purgatory and all poor sinners; for all those who have been recommended to our prayers, for those for whom we have promised and are bound to pray. O God we humbly beseech you to hear our prayers, and grant our petitions. We ask this through the merits of the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.