WHY WE PRAY AND FAST FOR PRIESTS

  “O Jesus, eternal Priest,
keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,
where none may touch them.
Keep unstained their anointed hands,
which daily touch Your Sacred Body.
Keep unsullied their lips,
daily purpled with your Precious Blood.
Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,
sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.
Let Your holy love surround them and
shield 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 in heaven their beautiful and
everlasting crown.”

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

 

TO FAST AND PRAY FOR PRIESTS.

We pray and fast for the priest who baptizes our soul.

Hidden in our priest is the Holy One Who waits and yearns to be revealed in the humility and innocence of a child. The powerlessness of this little child is absolute when they are lowered into the Baptismal Font.

And Spirit Lord, unseen, unheard, obeys the voice of our priest and rushes into the soul of that little one. In the Name of Father, Son and Spirit, justifying and sanctifying grace floods that soul and their life in the Spirit of God has begun, sealed with the mark of Christ.

We pray with St Therese ...

"Keep pure and unearthly the heart (... of a loving, humble priest),

sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood."

We wait in line to be forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession / Reconciliation.

Sitting beside us, we see our Savior, waiting with us.

In His Image, our priest sits, kneels beside us, weeps with us in deep compassion 

in this Sacrament of spiritual healing and graces to defeat our sins.

As the embodiment of the One Whose Name is Humility,

our priest's demeanor, tone, gentleness,compassion speak to us.

Through holy listening, Spirit Lord empowers us 

to hear our priest tell our wounded soul that 

the Confessional is a Sacred Space where our soul is safe ...

and in His Name, our priest absolves us from our sins.

"Go! I forgive you. Borrow My strength. Sin no more."

And with St Therese, we pray for our priest....

"Bless their labors with abundant fruit and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here, and in heaven, their beautiful and everlasting crown."

 We fast and pray for the priest whose voice God obeys at the Consecration of the Mass.

"THIS IS MY BODY. THIS IS MY BLOOD."

PRIEST. IPSE CHRISTUS.

At the command of the priest,

the bread and wine are transubstantiated

into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Savior.

Our Savior, in His Divine Silence, in His Glory, in His Strength,

before Whom angels are prostrating themselves,

is placed on our tongues, our outstretched hands.

His powerlessness is total again. As it was on the Cross.

He enslaves Himself again to our love,

whether our love for Him is little or much.

And He gives us His Father, His Spirit, His Mother, His All.

THROUGH HIS PRIEST.

"Keep unstained their anointed hands,

which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips,

daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,

sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and

shield them from the world’s contagion."

Jesus, High Eternal Priest, shares His earthly life with our priest

who is ordained

to be in His likeness.

His priests, His "other selves", will live and die like Him, for us.

 Our priest will be tempted (Matthew 4:1-11); 

he will be vulnerable (John 13:1-17);

he will be filled with anguish (Matthew 26:36-46);

his parishioners will desert him (John 6: 53-66);

his friends will reject him (Luke 22:57);

he will endure embarrassment and humiliations and suffering of soul and body

(Matthew 26 -27, Mark 14-15, Luke 22-23, John 12-19).

 This is why we pray and fast for our priests.

"O Jesus, High Eternal Priest,

keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,

where none may touch them ... let your holy love surround them."

(St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face,

Patroness of the annual Lay Fast for Priests)

The 19th, annual LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS will take place on

Saturday, 19 October 2024

from Dawn until 3 PM.

To join the global army of fasters, please sign up at:

http://www.annaprae.com/lay-fast-for-priests-2024.html