A prayer for my parents
The prayer
Lord, they gave me what they had. Part of it I carry with gratitude, part of it I am still learning to set down.
Look after them where I cannot get to: their health, their fear of getting old, the bills they do not tell me about.
If there is still time to talk, give us the subject and the hour. If there is not, keep whatever was left unsaid.
And give me patience for the repetition, which is how old age learned to ask for company.
Amen.
In short
This is a prayer for your parents, written for this site and signed. It works for people with a good relationship and for people without one. It asks for care over their health, patience for the repetition of old age, and courage for the conversations there is still time to have.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 5 min read
When to pray it
After a visit, on the way out of a hospital, or on the Sunday you ended the phone call annoyed. It also works on the day the phone call is no longer possible.
The prayer opens by admitting that the inheritance was mixed, because in nearly every family it is. The line about setting things down is not an accusation against anybody: it describes a piece of adult work that most people do at some point, with or without a therapist, and that does not get easier when you pretend it is not happening. Praying for someone does not oblige you to pretend they were perfect.
Scripture’s word here is honour, and honour is not a synonym for obey. Honouring an elderly parent may mean overruling them about driving, about living alone, about a medication they refuse to take. And honouring a parent who did harm obliges nobody to stay close to them: where there was violence or abuse, putting distance between you is legitimate, and physical distance is not the opposite of honour.
One practical note for anyone arriving here exhausted. Caring for a parent losing independence is heavy work, and carer burnout is a well-documented phenomenon rather than a character flaw. Praying does not replace splitting the load with your siblings, paying for help where that is possible, or getting advice from people who do this professionally. An exhausted carer cares badly, and admitting it early spares both sides.
Where this prayer comes from
When it appeared Written for Faith Flame in 2026
Holding up an ageing father or mother is one of the few duties Scripture repeats in every block of the library: it is in the Law, in the wisdom books, in the Gospels and in Paul’s letters. What changes is the target. In Exodus it is a commandment; in Mark 7 it is an accusation against people using religion to dodge the bill; in 1 Timothy 5 it is a piece of household administration.
This prayer was written for this site, and it is signed. No traditional formula exists for it, and the reason is almost administrative: Christian devotion produced prayers of parents for children by the thousand and almost none of children for parents, probably because for most of history people did not live long enough for their parents to become the responsibility of a grown adult.
It was written to fit difficult relationships too. No line here asks you to feel what you do not feel, and none treats gratitude as compulsory. The second stanza is deliberately practical — health, fear, hidden bills — because those three are how most adult children discover that their parents have got old, almost always too late for the conversation that would have prevented the shock.
Little-known details
It is the only one of the Ten Commandments with a promise attached — and Paul is the one who points it out
Jesus attacks a religious loophole invented to avoid supporting parents
The bluntest verse about an ageing parent sits in a book not every Bible carries
What the passages say
12Honor your father and your mother, so that you may have a long life upon the land, which the Lord your God will give to you.
The verb is honour, not obey, and the distinction is not a fine one — it settles most of the questions that bring people to this page. The commandment was addressed to adults with elderly parents, in a world where an old person’s survival depended entirely on their children.
22Listen to your father, who conceived you. And do not despise your mother, when she is old.
The second half of the verse is the half that ages well: do not despise your mother when she is old. The proverb anticipates the moment when the child has more strength and more information than the parent — which is precisely when contempt becomes easy.
12Do not boast in the disgrace of your father; for his shame is not your glory.
13For the glory of a man is from the honor of his father, and a father without honor is a discredit to the son.
14Son, support your father in his old age, and do not grieve him in his life.
Ben Sira treats the subject with more realism than anyone else in Scripture: supporting a father in old age, and not grieving him while he lives. The book is deuterocanonical and is not in the Protestant canon, which explains why the passage is little known outside Catholic settings.
4But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let her first learn to manage her own household, and to fulfill, in turn, her own obligation to her parents; for this is acceptable before God.
Paul frames care for parents as repayment, using the language of returning something received. Note that the instruction sits inside a discussion about how a community allocates its resources — the subject there is money and labour, not sentiment.
10For Moses said: ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever will have cursed father or mother, let him die a death.’
11But you say, ‘If a man will have said to his father or mother: Korban, (which is a gift) whatever is from me will be to your benefit,’
12then you do not release him to do anything for his father or mother,
13rescinding the word of God through your tradition, which you have handed down. And you do many other similar things in this way.”
The criticism is aimed at religious people who found a pious way of not supporting their own parents. It stands as a permanent warning: when a spiritual argument arrives at exactly the conclusion that suits the arguer’s wallet, it is worth a second look.