O Almighty Eternal God, look upon the face of Thy Son, and for the love of Him Who is the Eternal High-priest, have mercy on Thy priests. Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings. Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them by the imposition of the Bishop’s hands. Keep them close to Thee, lest the enemy prevail against them, so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree unworthy of their sublime vocation.
O Jesus, I pray Thee for Thy faithful and fervent priests; for Thy unfaithful and tepid priests; for Thy priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Thy tempted priests; for Thy lonely and desolate priests; for Thy young priests; for Thy dying priests; for the souls of Thy priests in purgatory.
But above all I commend to Thee the priests dearest to me; the priest who baptized me; the priests who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Thy Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed me or helped me and encouraged me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way, particularly (mention name). O Jesus, keep them abundantly in time and in eternity.
Amen.
Thank you, Margaret. These men, we trust them with our most private, most sacred, most devastating, and happiest moments in our lives. And we should, almost all of them are deserving AND serving God in the most awesome ways. But, Satan is very, very busy. He is busy with temptation and with lies.
If you are interested, please contact Janette at Truth Himself. She coordinates a beautiful ministry of praying for priests — in St. Paul. It's powerful and so, so needed.
Amen! They truly need our prayers, now more than ever!! Thank you for posting this, Margaret!
Beautiful prayer…I'm spreading it by sharing it too!
AMEN! what a lovely photo.
Beautiful!
Hi Margaret! I just stopped over from Jamie Jo's post about priests, in particular, Blessed Martin Martinez Pascual. I just read an amazing article from Fr. Mike Schmitz (whom is from MN I heard) about what it is like being on the other side of the confessional, as a priest. Wow! Powerful! I read the article to my Confirmation class (8th graders, second year). My husband's rosary intention is always for our priests. Thank you for this prayer!
Thanks Margaret. I am printing this off for my daily prayers.
Thanks for sharing this. I haven't commented here before, but last night I watched only about 3 minutes of the news when WCCO covered the re-opening of Fr. Shelley's case and my heart sank. It seems to be everywhere.