A Prayer Before the Blessed Sacrament for the Increase of Priestly and Religious Vocations
(by Archbishop Justin Rigali, St. Louis)
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Eternal Father, Son of the Virgin Mary, we thank you for offering your life in sacrifice on the Cross, and for renewing this sacrifice in every Mass celebrated throughout the world.
In the power of the Holy Spirit we adore you and proclaim your living presence in the Eucharist. We desire to imitate the love you show us in your death and resurrection, by loving and serving one another.
We ask you to call many young people to religious life, and to provide the holy and generous priests that are so need in your Church today. Lord Jesus, hear our prayer Amen
O my God, help those priests who are faithful to remain faithful; to those who are falling, stretch forth Your Divine Hand that they may grasp it as their support.
In the great ocean of Your mercy, lift those poor unfortunate ones who have fallen, that being engulfed therein they may receive the grace to return to Your Great Loving Heart. Amen.
Divine Savior Jesus Christ, who has entrusted the whole work of your redemption, the welfare, and salvation of the world to priests as Your representatives, through the hands of your most holy Mother and for the sanctification of your priests and candidates for the priesthood, I offer you this present day wholly and entirely, with all its prayers, works, joys, sacrifices, and sorrows. Give us truly holy priests who, inflamed with the fire of Your divine love, seek nothing but Your greater glory and the salvation of our souls.
And you, Mary, good Mother of priests, protect .all priests in the dangers of their holy vocation and, with the loving hand of a Mother, also lead back to the Good Shepherd those poor priests who have become unfaithful to their exalted vocation and have gone astray. Amen.
Prayer for Priests:
Keep them, I pray Thee, dearest Lord, keep them for they are Thine--Thy priests whose lives burn out before Thy consecrated shrine.
Keep them, for they are in the world, though from the world apart; when earthly pleasures tempt, allure--shelter them in Thy heart.
Keep them, and comfort them in hours of loneliness and pain, when all their life of sacrifice for souls seems but in vain.
Keep them, and O remember, Lord, they have no one but Thee, yet they have only human hearts, with human frailty.
Keep them as spotless as the Host, that daily they caress; their every thought and word and deed, deign, dearest Lord, to bless. Amen.
Pray and work for Peace! Help us bring people to Jesus, through Mary, by spreading Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration!
Our Lady, Mother of Sorrows
pray for Priests,
your special sons.
Strengthen their faith and love of Jesus
in the Most Blessed Sacrament,
so that they may turn to Him
for the grace they need to live
a life faithful to their calling.
Bring comfort,
consolation and courage
to those who are suffering
under the weight of the Cross.
Give them the love of your Son
and zeal for the honor and glory of God,
and the salvation of souls. Amen.
Prayer for Priests
0 my God, pour forth upon thy priests the spirit of sacrifice
in its fulness. It is their glory as much as their duty to be
victims, to consume themselves for souls, to live without
human joys, to often undergo mistrust, injustice and
persecution.
May they reflect upon what they say each day at the altar:
"This is My Body; this is My Blood." May they reflect on
it and apply it to themselves: "I am no longer myself, I am
Jesus, and Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine,
a consecrated substance which has ceased to be itself"
0 my God, I burn with the desire of the sanctification of Thy
priests. I would that all those consecrated hands which touch
Thee be friendly hands whose contact be sweet to Thee, and that the mouths which pronounce at the altar words so sublime never lower them- selves to trivial formulas.
May they keep in their entire person the habit of their noble functions. May one find them simple and great, like the Host, accessible to all and superior to other men.
0 my God, make them carry away from the Mass of today the thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and may each of them, filled with gifts received, have the. grace to communicate them generously to others. Amen.
0 Almighty, Eternal God, look upon the face of Thy Son, and for love of Him Who is the Eternal High-priest, have pity on Thy priests. Remember, 0 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.
0 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 and encouraged me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way. 0 Jesus, keep them all, close to Thy heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.
ANOTHER
PRAYER FOR PRIESTS
Divine Savior, Thou Friend of priests, send daily to all priests the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, that they may become all things to all men, in life and in death. Give them patience with the little ones, compassion for the sick, humility with the poor, courage before the enemies of the Church.
Make them tireless in teaching, patient and kind in the confessional, generous in the administration of Holy Communion.
Let them appear terrible to hell and the powers of evil, let them be messengers of peace to all men of good will.
Wherever they go, may Thy blessing go with them, wherever they abide, may Thy peace enter in. Whomsoever they bless, may he also be blessed by Thee. Make them apostles, make them saints.
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, model of the priestly heart, have mercy on us!
O Gentle Jesus, call Thy priests back to Thee. Lay open their hearts to hear Thy call, and answer Thy call with fervor and a burining love to lead Thy flocks to Thee. (Say the above prayer 3 times while concentrating on the Eucharist) World Apostolate of Fatima--The Blue Army
