#prayforourpriests

Quote/s of the Day – 18 July – The Holy Father’s Prayer Intention for July “Pray for our Priests and their Pastoral Ministry”

“He made them, the vicars of His love.

St Ambrose (340-397)

Father & Doctor of the Church

“The power of the priest, is the power of the divine person, for the transubstantiation of the bread, requires as much power, as the creation of the world.”

St Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444)

“St Bernard tells us that everything has come to us through Mary and we may also say that everything has come to us through the priest, yes, all happiness, all graces, all heavenly gifts. If we had not the Sacrament of Orders, we should not have Our Lord. Who placed Him there, in that tabernacle? It was the priest. Who was it that received your soul, on its entrance into life? The priest. Who nourishes it, to give it strength to make its pilgrimage? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, by washing that soul, for the last time, in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest – always the priest. And if that soul comes to the point of death, who will raise it up, who will restore it to calmness and peace? Again the priest. You cannot recall one single blessing from God, without finding, side by side with this recollection, the image of the priest.”

“If I were to meet a priest and an angel, I should salute the priest before I saluted the angel. The latter is the friend of God but the priest holds His place.”

St John Vianney (1786-1859) Patron of Priests

“Day after day, it is necessary to learn, that I do not possess my life for myself. Day by day, I must learn to abandon myself, to keep myself available for whatever He, the Lord, needs of me at a given moment, even if other things seem more appealing and more important to me, this means giving life, not taking it.”

Pope Benedict XVI

Second Thoughts for the Day – 26 August – 21st Sunday of the Year in Ordinary Time, Year B – Today’s Gospel: John 6:60–69

May we offer our Sunday Communion for all the Priests of the World, who bring us the Sacrament which gives us life.

O my beloved Jesus, Son of the Father and His Eternal High Priest, offering Yourself to Him perpetually in the sanctuary of heaven and here in the Sacrament of Your Redeeming Love, I adore You.

I praise You that here I find Your Eucharistic Heart, open, ever-beating with love, and covering with a flood of Blood and of Water those who draw near to You in this Sacrament.

I praise You that here I behold Your Eucharistic Face, filling the shadows of this world with Your deifying light, and shining into the hearts of those who approach You in faith, in hope and in love.

I pray to You for Your priests, without whom this valley of tears would be devoid of the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, without the adorable mysteries of Your life-giving Body and Blood, and without Your abiding real presence in the tabernacles of the world.

Sanctify Your priests, O Jesus! Wash them in the Blood and Water gushing at every moment from Your Sacred Side Heal them in the light of Your Eucharistic Face and, to do this, draw them all into Your sacramental presence.

Let Your tabernacles magnetise their souls, and the desire to abide before Your Eucharistic Face hold sway over their hearts. Let Your Sacred Body exposed in the monstrance exercise over them the most compelling of all attractions.

Look today upon those priests who, for whatever reason, have forgotten the way to Your tabernacles and rarely, if ever, stop all else to rest their tired bodies and still their minds before Your Eucharistic Face, and to adore You simply because . . . You are there.

Save Your priests in danger of falling into sin, and lift those who have fallen, so that, having confessed their faults and received absolution, they may return to Your altar and to the joy of their youth.

Let not one of Your priests remain outside the radiance of Your Eucharistic Face. Draw them all out of this world’s darkness into Your wonderful light, that with the psalmist they might say not once, but again and again: “Look to Him and be radiant and on your faces there will be no trace of shame.” Amen.

I pray especially for my own Priest, Fr Enrico Parry and Catholic Priest Media – https://catholicpriestmedia.com/