Prayers for Anxiety, Worry and Fear

Anxiety and depression often travel together, and the prayer at the top of this page is written for both. The Catechism is frank that illness of any kind “can lead to anguish, self-absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God” (CCC 1501). Saying so is not a lack of faith. Elijah, the greatest of the prophets, sat down under a tree in the desert and asked to die: “It is enough. Now, O LORD, take away my life” (1 Kings 19:4). God did not argue with him. He sent an angel who let him sleep, then woke him with food: “Arise and eat!” — and a second time, “because the journey is too great for you” (1 Kings 19:5–7). Rest, food and company first. The conversation came later.

If your anxiety has become hopelessness, or you are having thoughts of ending your life or of harming yourself, please do not carry this alone and do not wait. Reach out now:

An anxious mind does not want a long prayer. It wants something short enough to say while the heart is still racing, and honest enough to be true. The prayer at the top of this page does three things, and any prayer for anxiety you write yourself can do the same: it names the fear to God, it hands over what you cannot control, and it asks for the next small step rather than for the whole road. That is the shape of Christ’s own teaching: “Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient” (Matthew 6:34).

Here are three even shorter forms, for when a sentence is all there is room for:

Night is when anxiety is loudest. The day’s distractions are gone, the body is tired, and the mind starts to rehearse every conversation and every worst case. The psalmist knew it: “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, your comforts delight my soul” (Psalm 94:19). The Church’s own night prayer ends the day by handing it over rather than solving it, with the words of Psalm 4: “In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me live in safety” (Psalm 4:8). Say this lying down, with the lights off:

Some anxiety has a date on it: an exam, a job interview, a court hearing, a scan, a test result, the appointment you have been dreading. Praying beforehand does not mean asking God to fix the outcome. It means asking for a clear head, for the right words, and for peace whatever the result. Christ told his disciples, facing a far harder hearing than any exam, “don’t be anxious how or what you will answer or what you will say” (Luke 12:11), because they would not be alone in the room. Neither are you.

A panic attack is, in the words of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, “a sudden wave of fear or discomfort or a sense of losing control even when there is no clear danger or trigger,” often with “physical symptoms that might feel like a heart attack.” The NIMH adds that panic attacks “themselves are not life-threatening, and the physical symptoms usually resolve with time.” If you have chest pain and are not sure it is panic, or it is your first attack, treat it as a medical emergency and call 911 or your local emergency number. Being checked is never an overreaction.

In the middle of an attack, no one can pray a long prayer. Breathe slowly, and let the words ride on your breath: the first half as you breathe in, the second as you breathe out.

Sometimes the anxious one is your child before school, a spouse who cannot switch off, a friend who has stopped going out. Praying for them is not a lesser thing than helping them; the Catechism calls intercession, “asking on behalf of another,” the mark of “a heart attuned to God’s mercy” (CCC 2635). Pray it by name:

People ask which Bible verse is best for anxiety. The most quoted is Philippians 4:6–7, where Paul, writing from prison, tells the Philippians to bring every worry to God “by prayer and petition with thanksgiving,” and promises that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” It has its own page: Philippians 4, do not be anxious, a Scripture meditation on the whole passage.

Scripture has more to say, and some of it is surprising. St. Peter gives the same counsel in a single line: “casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, points to the birds and the lilies and asks, “Which of you by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan?” (Matthew 6:27). To an overworked Martha he says, gently, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). And he makes a promise to every tired person: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

The verse that matters most for an anxious Christian may be the one that is least quoted. In Gethsemane, the night before he died, Jesus himself said, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38), and Luke records that “Being in agony, he prayed more earnestly” (Luke 22:44). The Son of God knew dread in his body. You are not praying to someone who has never felt what you feel.

“Give it to God” is easy advice and hard practice. The Church offers something more concrete than a slogan. Jesus’ teaching on worry, the Catechism says, “is not inviting us to idleness, but wants to relieve us from nagging worry and preoccupation” (CCC 2830). And a sound Christian attitude “consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future” — while “improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility” (CCC 2115). Trust and planning are not opposites. You do what is yours to do, and you hand over the rest.

In practice, many people find these four steps help:

• Name it. Tell God exactly what you are afraid of, in words, even if it sounds small. Psalm 139 prays, “Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.”
• Sort it. Is there one thing you can do about it today? Do that. What is left is not yours to carry.
• Hand it over. Say it out loud if you can: “Lord, this part is yours.” The Surrender Novena is nine days of exactly this prayer, built on the words “O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything!”
• Take it back, and give it again. You will pick the worry up again within the hour. Everyone does. Surrender is not a single act but a habit, repeated as often as the worry returns.

The Church prays this at every Mass. After the Our Father, the priest asks that we be kept free from sin and, in the words the Catechism gives, “protected from all anxiety” as we wait for Christ’s coming (CCC 2854). Anxiety is so ordinary a human burden that the liturgy brings it to God every single day.

No. Occasional anxiety is part of being human; Christ felt it in Gethsemane. And an anxiety disorder is an illness, not a verdict on your soul. The NIMH puts it plainly: “Feeling anxious is a normal part of life,” but “anxiety disorders involve more than occasional worry or fear”; for people with them, anxiety “does not go away, is felt in many situations, and can get worse over time.” Its main forms include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder and phobias.

The Church treats illness of the mind the way she treats any illness. “Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them” (CCC 2288). Seeing a doctor, starting therapy or taking medication is that reasonable care, and it is no betrayal of trust in God. Scripture itself says so: “The Lord created medicines out of the earth. A prudent man will not despise them” (Sirach 38:4), and “Then give place to the physician, for truly the Lord has created him” (Sirach 38:12).

What the Church will not do is promise that prayer cures anxiety. She prays for healing and believes God heals. But she also teaches, honestly, that “even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses” (CCC 1508). Anyone who tells you that you are still anxious because your faith is too weak is teaching something the Church does not teach. St. Paul begged three times to be freed of his “thorn in the flesh” and was told, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Prayer and treatment belong together: pray for your doctor, pray before your appointments, and let God work through both.