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One Minute Meditation

Laborers for the Harvest

O Jesus, Good Shepherd, raise up in all parish commu­nities, priests and deacons, religious, consecrated lay people and missionaries according to the needs of the whole world, which You love and want to save.

We entrust toYou in a particular way our parish community; create in it the spiritual atmosphere of the first Christians in order that it may be a cenacle of prayer where we lovingly receive the Holy Spirit and His gifts.

Assist our pastors and all consecrated souls. Guide the steps of those who have generously welcomed Your call and prepared themselves for Holy Orders or the profession of the evangelical counsels. Direct Your loving gaze to the many well-disposed young people and invite them to follow You. Help them to understand that only in You they can achieve their fulfillment.

We entrust these great desires of Your Heart to the powerful intercession of Mary, Mother and model of all vocations, and beg You to sustain our faith in the certainty that the Father will listen to what You Yourself have instructed us to ask for. Amen.

~Venerable Pope John Paul II

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One Minute Meditation

For Holy Church and for Priests

O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church, grant it love and the light of Your Spirit and give power to the words of priests so that hardened hearts might be brought to repentance and return to You, O Lord.

Lord, give us holy priests. You Yourself maintain them in holiness.  O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares which are continually being set for the souls of priests.

May the power of Your mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priests, for You can do all things. I ask You, Jesus, for a special blessing and for light for the priests before whom I will make my confessions throughout my lifetime. Amen.

~ St. Faustina

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One Minute Meditation

Prayer to the Eternal High Priest

O Jesus, Eternal Priest, keep Your priests within the shelter of Your Most Sacred Heart, where none can touch them. Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch Your Sacred Body. Keep unsullied their lips daily tinged with Your Precious Blood. Keep pure and unworldly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood. Let Your Holy Love surround and protect them from the world’s contagion. Bless their labors with abundant fruit, and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here, and their everlasting crown in the hereafter. Amen.

~ St. Therese of the Child Jesus

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One Minute Meditation

Prayers for All Priests

My God, I pray for all Your priests and beseech You to sanctify them. Let them love their sacrifice deeply so that they may live it lovingly. I beg You, grant them obedience, a spirit of detachment, a chastity which is constant and true, a spirit of self-denial, humility, sweetness, zeal and dedication.

I beg You that all those who may approach them may leave them with a greater love for You. My God, I pray that through them Your Kingdom on earth may grow and be strengthened.  O Jesus, I promise with all my heart to sacrifice myself with You. Amen.

~ Canon Formingio

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One Minute Meditations

A Prayer for Priests:

O Almighty, Eternal God, look upon the Face of Your Son and for love of Him, who is the Eternal High Priest, have pity on Your 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 You, 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 for Your faithful and fervent priests; for Your unfaithful and tepid priests; for Your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Your tempted priests; for the lonely and desolate priests; for Your young priests; for Your dying priests; for the souls of Your priests in purgatory. But above all, I commend to You the priests dearest to me, the priest who baptized me, the priests who have absolved me from my sins, the priests at whose Masses I have assisted and who have offered me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion, the priests who have taught and instructed me or helped and encouraged me, and the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way. O Jesus, keep them all close to Your Heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.

~ Cardinal Cushing

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Ave Maria Meditations

The priesthood in the Catholic Church is identified with many things. The priest can be pastor, teacher, counselor, writer, admin­istrator, or social worker; but the main reason he has been ordained is because of the Eucharist. So true is this that if we would specify the heart of the priesthood we would have to say it is the Eucharist: the Eucharist as Presence and the Eucharist as Sacrifice. A priest makes the Real Presence possible and no one, no king, no ge­nius, not even the will of a thousand people, nor the combined efforts of a whole nation, can substitute for the power of a priest’s consecrated words: “This is My Body. .. This is the chalice of My Blood.” (more…)

Homily #100105 ( 09min) Play – In this year of prayer for the Priesthood we should give thanks for the priest that have fed their people and pray for those that have not. Today we remember St. John Nepomucene Neumann (1811-1860) a Redemptorist priest and Bishop of Philadelphia.

Ave Maria! Mass readings, http://www.stjohnneumann.org/life.html

Audio (MP3)

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Ave Maria Meditations

The priest’s mission seems hopelessly difficult. Has the world ever been as depraved as it is today? Have Satan’s cohorts ever been as numerous, as fierce, as cunning? Has the army of Christ ever been weaker compared to these powerful forces? A priest will lose confidence if he thinks about the enemy in comparison to himself. But it is Christ he should think about; Christ has given him his mission as the Father gave Christ His mission. (Jn. 20:21)

He is an ambassador of Christ (2 Cor 5:20) and Christ has declared, and He cannot be wrong:  “I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself (Jn 12:32). Now shall the ruler of this world be cast out (Jn 12:31). Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world ” (Jn 16:33).  Acting in the name of the Son of God, the priest is all powerful with the power of God. Acting in his own name, he  is as weak as the weakest of men. He is feeble when depending on himself alone; he is unbeatable when he acts with Jesus. When he acts in the Name of Jesus, his very weakness is an encouragement. (more…)

One Minute Meditation

Confidence in Mary, Mother of Priests

141. When you meet very serious difficulties in the path of holiness and the exercise of your ministry, turn your eyes and your mind trustfully to her who is the Mother of the Eternal Priest and therefore the loving Mother of all Catholic priests. You are well aware of the goodness of this Mother. In many regions you have been the humble instruments of the mercy of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in wonderfully reviving the faith and charity of the Christian people.

142. Our Lady loves everyone with a most tender love, but She has a particular predilection for priests who are the living image of Jesus Christ. Take comfort in the thought of the love of the Divine Mother for each of you and you will find the labors of your sanctification and priestly ministry much easier.

All Priests Entrusted to Mary

143. To the Beloved Mother of God, Mediatrix of heavenly graces, We entrust the priests of the whole world in order that, through her intercession, God will vouchsafe a generous outpouring of His Spirit which will move all ministers of the altar to holiness and, through their ministry, will spiritually renew the face of the earth.

For the full document see https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12CLERG.HTM

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One Minute Meditation

ROSARY FOR PRIESTS

John Cardinal Carberry

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. AMEN.

Dear Jesus, how can we ever properly thank You for our priests?  They have given up everything for us, forsaking the world to nourish our souls with the Eucharist and to heal our wounds through holy confession

End forth Your Holy Spirit right now, in a flood-nay-a supernatural torrent of grace in swift and sure answer to this plea, bringing consolations and courage and purity and joy to our beloved priests. As only You can do, whisper into their hearts that we love them so.  As only You can do, enwrap each man wearing a cassock and collar (and habit)  in the loving maternal arms of Your Mother who wept with You and stayed with You during Your hours of suffering during Your crucifixion.

We ask this in Your Holy Name, the Name above all names:  Jesus!  Amen.

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Prayer for Priests to be said after every decade of the rosary , after the Fatima prayer:

God, our Father, please send us holy priests, all for the Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, all for the sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, all in union with Saint Joseph.

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Ave Maria Meditations

+ O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son & Holy Spirit, open my mind that I may think according to Your ways ­not according to man’s way or my way. Enlighten me, Lord, guard me, guide me, and teach me. Fill me with the most precious gifts of the Most Holy Trinity. Fill me with the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord – with genuine humility and obedience.

+ O Lord, open my lips only for You to speak and act through me, with me and in me all the days of my life. Without You, Lord – seal my lips (keep me silent).

+ O Lord, open my heart and fill it with eternal love, g1oty, praise, adoration and thanksgiving.

+ Fill my heart with deep eternal sorrow for all the sins of my life, not as I see my sins, but as You O Lord, see them. Fill my heart with deep eternal gratitude for creating me, redeeming me, sanctifying me, adopting me as your child and calling me to my h oly vocations.

+ Keep me faithful to Your teaching and never let me be parted from You, O Lord. Amen

Fr. Valerian Rykowski

+3-1-09

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Ave Maria Meditations

excerpts from ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA:

On the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church

Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II, April 2003

The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church. In a variety of ways she joyfully experiences the constant fulfillment of the promise: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20), but in the Holy Eucharist, through the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, she rejoices in this presence with unique intensity…The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic sacrifice is “the source and summit of the Christian life.  For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our Passover and living Bread. Through his own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men”. Consequently the gaze of the church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.

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In this Year of the Priest it is a special pleasure to consider the Patron Saint of ALL Priests, St. John Vianney.  He had been the Patron of Parish Priests but our Holy Father has extended that patronage to all Priests.