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 them...