Prayer against temptation: short prayers for the moment it hits

The best prayer against temptation is a short one you can pray the moment you feel the pull: "Jesus, help me," "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," or the line Jesus himself gave us, "lead us not into temptation." Pray it right away, before you start arguing with the temptation, and then do something different with your hands and your eyes. Below are the prayers Catholics have used for generations, with their exact words, and how to use them.

Does prayer really help against temptation?

Yes, and Jesus said so plainly. In the garden the night before he died, he told his sleepy disciples: "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41). The Catechism puts it just as directly: victory over temptation becomes possible "only through prayer" (CCC 2849).

Prayer works because it changes the conversation. A temptation wants you alone with it, turning it over, weighing it. A prayer, even three words long, brings God into the room. It also reminds you of a promise: "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape" (1 Corinthians 10:13). Often the prayer is the first step of that way out.

One more thing before the prayers. Being tempted is not a sin. The Catechism asks us to tell apart "being tempted and consenting to temptation" (CCC 2847). Jesus was tempted too. Feeling the pull means you're human; praying means you're already resisting.

Short prayers for the moment of temptation

These are sometimes called aspirations or ejaculatory prayers: one breath long, easy to remember, possible anywhere. Pick one or two and make them yours.

• "Jesus, I trust in you."
• "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." (the Jesus Prayer, prayed slowly, in rhythm with your breathing)
• "O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me." (from Psalm 70, the words that open most hours of the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church's daily prayer)
• "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10; verse 12 in some Catholic Bibles)
• "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, help me."
• Simply the name: "Jesus."

Your own words count just as much. "Lord, I don't want to do this. Help me" is a complete prayer. So is "Not this, Lord. Not tonight."

"Lead us not into temptation": the Our Father

The prayer Jesus taught us ends with two petitions about this very fight: "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

The line can sound strange, as if God might lead us into sin. He doesn't. "God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one" (James 1:13). The Catechism explains that the Greek behind this line means both "do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to temptation" (CCC 2846). So when you pray it, you're asking for two graces: to be kept out of the situation, and to stand firm if you're already in it.

When a temptation comes, try praying the whole Our Father slowly, and stop on that line. Say it twice if you need to. It's the prayer Jesus gave us for exactly this moment.

The St Michael prayer

Pope Leo XIII wrote this prayer in the 1880s, and Catholics prayed it after every Low Mass for decades. Many still pray it every morning. It asks for protection against "the wickedness and snares of the devil," which is exactly what a strong temptation can feel like.

Its history, its meaning line by line, and the best times to pray it are in our page on the St Michael prayer.

Prayers to Mary and to your guardian angel

Catholics have always run to Mary in temptation. A Hail Mary is enough, and many people pray one every time a familiar temptation starts. This is also one of the oldest Marian prayers we have:

And the prayer most of us learned as children still works for adults:

How do you pray when temptation hits?

1. Notice it early. Temptation is easiest to resist in its first seconds, before you've started bargaining. The moment you notice the pull, that's the moment to pray.
2. Turn to God instead of arguing. Debating a temptation keeps your attention on it. Look away from it and toward God with one short prayer.
3. Pray it more than once. Repeat your prayer as many times as the thought comes back. Twenty times in ten minutes isn't failure. It's twenty acts of love.
4. Move. Put the phone in another room, step outside, call someone, go to bed. Prayer and a practical step belong together. Our page on the near occasion of sin helps you find those steps ahead of time.
5. Thank God afterward. When the pull passes, say so. "Thank you, Lord" trains your heart to see that his help was real.

Prayers to pray before temptation comes

Most temptations aren't surprises. You probably know your hard hour: late at night, after a fight, alone with the phone, at the end of a long week. Pray before it arrives.

• In the morning. Give the day to God and name the weak spot: "Lord, tonight will be hard. Be with me then."
• Before the hard hour. Pray the St Michael prayer or a decade of the Rosary when you get home or before you go to bed.
• In the evening. A short daily examen shows you the pattern: when the temptation came, what came just before, and what helped.

For the wider plan, alongside prayer, see how to resist temptation.

If you fell anyway

Pray then too, and don't wait. Tell God you're sorry, in your own words or with an Act of Contrition. If it was serious, go to Confession at your next chance. Falling doesn't cancel the prayers you prayed. Each one was a real act of love, and God doesn't forget them.

Then start again with the same short prayer next time. People who grow strong against a temptation usually aren't the ones who never fell. They're the ones who kept turning to God, every time, until turning became a habit.