LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2025 - CLOSING REMARKS

The United Nations tells us that there are 195 countries in the world. In this 20th year of our Lay Fast for Priests, Catholics, in numbers that can't be counted, from every one of these countries have participated in this year's Lay Fast for all priests, those who were, those who are, those who are yet to be ordained. 

We have prayed for all priests of all times because St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face teaches us that through, with and in Christ Jesus, loving prayer soars beyond space and time.

When the sun rose over New Zealand yesterday, October 18, the first prayerful sacrifices were raised to Heaven for the souls of all priests. When it finally set over American Samoa , millions of people had united in our prayerful, hidden Fast for priests who were, who are now, and who are yet to be ordained. St. Therese, Patroness of the Lay Fast for Priests, had led us all, silently and prayerfully, in our hidden fast for these, Alter Christus, and Therese's mission to protect their souls was rekindled by Spirit Lord in every one of us. We fasted from food, talking, internet, social media, unnecessary travel, and many more gifts of small sacrifices, parceled up in our prayer. Yesterday, we may have embraced our frustrations with joy ... and Spirit Lord may have blessed a priest with an abundance of patience in confronting a spiritual challenge; we may have been tormented by doubts about our faith and endured a glimpse of "dark night" in our souls ... and Spirit Lord may have blessed a priest in doubt, gracing him with God's Light; we may have experienced strong physical hunger, unexpected in its intensity, if we fasted from food ... and through our small act of mortification, Spirit Lord may have protected a priest's soul from any "food" that could endanger his relationship with God.

Every hidden sacrifice and small act of self-denial that we may have endured in loving prayer for priests has been transformed by Spirit Lord into powerful intercessory prayer to protect their souls. Yet, all the while, in His great love and generosity, God doesn't forget us, His 'Fast-ers'.

St. Ignatius of Loyola reminds us: "God will not be outdone in generosity". And the generosity and love of God, grateful for the sacrifices we've offered Him for Alter Christus, touches all of our dear ones from years gone by, all who are facing challenges today in their lives, and all of our little ones held lovingly in the Mind of God until it is their time to be born. Love soars beyond space and time.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of my brothers, that, you do unto me (Matthew 25: 40).

There are hundreds of thousands of testimonies to the power of this year's Global Lay Fast for Priests. Among the millions, there are members of the American Armed Forces, mothers of current or future priests, whole organizations like the Serra Club, the Cenacle for African Priests, Legion of Mary communities, Carmelites world-wide, millions of individual 'Fast-ers', like you and I, and so many many more. We have been deeply humbled by the astonishing bravery of persecuted Catholics all across the globe in countries where our priests have been and are being attacked.

Our hearts may join in the Hymn to Our Lady for all priests, sung so beautifully by a brave group of young students from Nigeria AT THE LINK BELOW (for their safety and protection, we have removed the video of their 3 Pm Closing Prayer Service for Priests. May God surround them and their teachers with His protection because "the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him" - Psalm 34:7).

LINK (please press): https://drive.google.com/file/d/17bFfIsZV_0zXpya1wQHn_eY94mVxcU1t/view?usp=drive_link

St. Therese said that she would "let fall a shower of roses" after her death. What has arrived in our website and social media has not been a "shower". We have received nothing less than a magnificent deluge of roses from her. One rose for each person who offered their sacrifice for all priests this year.

May St. Therese's deluge of roses continue to fall on the whole world of Fast-ers on October 17, 2026.

In Carmel, 

In Christ Jesus,

Anna and the Lay Fast for Priests team

LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2025 - OPENING REMARKS

This month, twenty years ago, the LAY FAST DAY FOR PRIESTS began in response to a crisis in the priesthood that had shocked and wounded the Faithful.

That first Saturday, a group of just over 200 people from Our Lady's Shrine at La Salette, Massachusetts committed to offer the prayerful sacrifice of a Fast for all priests: those who were, those who are, those who are yet to be ordained.

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face became our Patroness. Over these 20 years, her powerful intercession has drawn people from across the globe to come together for this one Saturday each October to offer sacrificial prayer for all priests. That small group of 200+ 'Fast-ers' 20 years ago who responded to the Little Flower's invitation have grown into millions and from almost every country in the world.

St. Therese once said: "LET US SAVE, ABOVE ALL, THE SOULS OF PRIESTS. WE PRAY, WE SUFFER FOR THEM. AND ON THE LAST DAY, JESUS WILL BE GRATEFUL."

Under that direction of our St. Therese, we further learn from another greatly loved saint who taught us how to do as St. Therese suggests, to "pray and suffer" for other. St. John Paul II guides us....

"PRAYER UNITED WITH SACRIFICE IS THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE IN HUMAN HISTORY."

We offer our "prayer" and our "suffering" in our Fast for Priests and our united Sacrifice will once again, for the 20th year, become a "most powerful force," all across the world for God's priests, His "Ipse Christus". The Spirit of God, "hovering" (Gen. 1) over the face of the earth will breathe His Love into souls from across the Globe and we in turn will breathe His love out into our unitive prayer for all priests, all who were, who are and who are yet to be ordained. Millions of souls will offer sacrificial prayer to God for priests who forgive us in Jesus' Name, who consecrate the Bread and Wine and give us Christ Himself in the Most Holy Eucharist, priests whose hands anoint us when we are at last called Home and whose voice will walk us into Eternity.

St. Therese has given us many humbling testimonies of the sacrifices of our sisters and brothers in recent years.

We remember how in one of the poorest countries in Africa, an entire village fasted from food and water for all priests. Their sacrifice brings Therese's words to life.... "O Jesus, for the priest who baptised me, the priests who have absolved me from my sins, the priests at whose Masses I have assisted and who have given me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion."

We remember a grandmother, her daughter and son-in-law, four sons and grandsons who fasted in their country where priests were being dragged from Altars and those who were attending Mass were made to leave the Churches at gunpoint. We pray with St. Therese: "O Jesus, for your priests labouring at home or abroad in distant mission fields, for your tempted priests, for your lonely and desolate priests..."

With that grandmother, perhaps we too may be inspired this year to pray and offer any small sacrifice for those priests on our Fast Day 2025. Is any sacrifice "small"? Our St. Therese reminds us: "Jesus does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them."

We remember the Bishop who invited his entire Diocese to fast ... "O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests... keep them all close to your heart and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity" (St. Therese).

We will offer our fast for all of them this year. Therese teaches us that "Love, because it is Eternal, embraces every time and space." We can therefore raise our prayer and sacrifice for all priests, those who live today, those who were, those who are yet to be.

Last year, in a country where poverty and corruption are life-threatening, a mother joined the Fast but she alone in the family could fast for priests "because the children need the food". This is a country where two priests were murdered in the week prior to the Global Lay Fast. "O Jesus, for your young priests, for your dying priests, for the souls of your priests in Purgatory."

We pray and sacrifice in our Fast for all of these and all priests: for the quiet priests who live and give and are faith-filled and suffer and pray and are obedient and offer sacrifice in an anonymity that makes present the mysticism of the ordinariness of the 30 years of their High Priest in Nazareth. 

THE WORLD OF 'FAST-ERS' WILL BE PRAYING AND SACRIFICING FOR YOU ON OCTOBER 18.

We conclude our prayer and suffering for all priests in union with St. Therese as she speaks for us:

“O Almighty Eternal God, Look upon the Face of Thy Christ, and for the love of Him, Who is the Eternal High Priest, have pity 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, especially (...name here any particular priest whom you wish to pray and fast for). 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, and bless them abundantly in time, and in eternity."

WILL YOU PRAY FOR GOD'S "IPSE CHRISTUS" AGAIN AS ONE BODY IN HIM FOR THE 20TH GLOBAL LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS ON THE 18th OF OCTOBER, 2025?

May it please our loving God that we will all unite again this year, on Saturday October 18th, to pray and sacrifice together for all priests, for their protection, their faith, their hope, and above all, for their love.

"THE PRIESTHOOD IS THE LOVE OF THE HEART OF JESUS. WHEN YOU SEE A PRIEST, THINK OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST."

(St. John Vianney, patron Saint of Priests)

"O Jesus, I pray for Your faithful and fervent priests, for Your unfaithful and tepid priests, for Your priests labouring at home or abroad in distant mission fields, for Your tempted priests, for Your lonely and desolate priests, for Your young priests, for Your dying priests, for the souls of Your priests in purgatory. But above all, I recommend to You 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 Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion, the priests who taught and instructed me, all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way. O Jesus, keep them all close to Your Heart."

(St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face)

All are most welcome to join this global army of fasters at the link below:

https://www.annaprae.com/lay-fast-for-priests-2025.html