Morning Prayer — Common of Holy Women: Who Are These Women, and Why Do We Pray With Them

 



Morning Prayer has a way of settling the soul before the day begins. It’s the Church’s daily rhythm of praise, petition, and remembrance — and sometimes, tucked quietly into the breviary, we encounter a heading that feels both familiar and mysterious:

“Common of Holy Women.”

If you’ve ever paused over that phrase, you’re not alone. It sounds like a gathering — a communion — but who exactly is gathered? And why does the Church invite us to pray with them?

What the “Common of Holy Women” Is

In the Liturgy of the Hours, a Common is a set of prayers used for a whole category of saints. Not every saint has a full, individualized office; many are celebrated through these shared texts. The Common of Holy Women is used for:

  • women saints who lived lives of heroic virtue,

  • women who shaped the Church through teaching, service, or witness,

  • women whose holiness was quiet, steadfast, and often hidden,

  • women whose feast days do not have unique propers.

The prayers in this Common emphasize themes that echo across women’s lives throughout Christian history: fidelity, courage, hospitality, contemplation, perseverance, and the fierce tenderness that marks so many female saints.

It is, in a sense, a liturgical sisterhood.

Who Are the Holy Women?

The Common doesn’t list names — but the Church’s memory does. When we pray Morning Prayer using the Common of Holy Women, we stand in the company of women whose holiness took different shapes across centuries and cultures.

Women of Courage

  • St. Joan of Arc, who heard God’s call and followed it into battle.

  • St. Perpetua and St. Felicity, who faced martyrdom with unshakable peace.

Women of Wisdom

  • St. Hildegard of Bingen, whose visions became music, theology, and medicine.

  • St. Catherine of Siena, who counseled popes and healed divisions.

Women of Service

  • St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who turned her royal privilege into a life of charity.

  • St. Marianne Cope, who cared for those with Hansen’s disease in Hawaii.

Women of Quiet Holiness

  • St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who taught the world the “little way.”

  • St. Kateri Tekakwitha, whose gentle devotion blossomed in the midst of hardship.

Women Who Mothered the Church

  • St. Monica, who prayed her son Augustine into sainthood.

  • St. Anne, whose faith shaped the mother of Jesus.

These women are not identical. Their holiness is not uniform. Some were scholars; some were mystics; some were mothers; some were martyrs; some were healers; some were hidden. But together they form a constellation — a communion of women whose lives reflect the many ways grace can take root in a human life.

Why This Matters for Us Today

When we pray the Common of Holy Women, we are not simply remembering them. We are allowing their lives to illuminate ours.

Their courage steadies ours. Their tenderness softens ours. Their perseverance strengthens ours. Their faith — lived in kitchens, cloisters, battlefields, and sickrooms — reminds us that holiness is not a rare calling. It is a daily one.

Morning Prayer places us in their company so that our own day, with its ordinary tasks and unexpected challenges, can be shaped by the same Spirit that shaped theirs.

A Communion That Grows

The communion of holy women is not finished. It grows quietly, year by year, as new women live lives of faithfulness in our own time — caregivers, teachers, contemplatives, activists, grandmothers, daughters, friends. Women whose names may never appear in a breviary but whose holiness is no less real.

When we pray the Common of Holy Women, we pray with them too.


Read more Morning Prayer posts: MSI Press Blog

Note about Morning Prayer: Each morning prayer post reflects on one phrase from the Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. which can be found in the iBreviary (a downloadable app), Universalis (website) or Divine Office (publication and website). Post may be assisted by AI in image generation and content (research and/or wording).


Morning Prayer posts inspired by Being Catholic in Troubled Times (Dennis Ortman)

Book Description:

These are times that try our souls. This book is addressed to all, not just Catholics, who search for deeper meaning in tough times. Our age is marked by division and alienation. We long for some message that will bring peace to our world and our hearts.

This book suggests that the Catholic faith can provide strength in these troubled times. The word "catholic" means "all-embracing, universal." Nothing is excluded in the catholic mind. The truth that sets us free can be found everywhere, especially in unexpected places. It is often hidden in plain sight. In our darkest moments, we find new light and life. When we are most despairing, a ray of hope shines through.



Dr. Dennis Ortman, former priest and current psychologist, is the author of Anger Anonymous, Anxiety Anonymous, Depression Anonymous, Being Catholic in Troubled Times, and Life, Liberty, and COVID-19.


For more posts by and about Dennis and his award-winning books, click HERE.



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