Prayers for Priests, Religious, and
An Increase In Vocations to Religious Life
Prayer for Vocations
God our Father and our Creator, we believe that You have made each of us in Your image and likeness. Help us to lead lives that reflect that belief. Increase happy vocations to the married life and the single life, the religious life and the ordained life. May we as husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, single women and single men, sisters and brothers, deacons, priests and bishops, be open to Your grace. Grant that we may seek always to do Your will and delight in the work which makes Your name and Your love known throughout the world. We ask this prayer in the name of Jesus, Your Son, and the Holy Spirit, our guide. Amen 
Prayer for Priests
From Sister Josefa Menendez O Jesus, by Your most loving Heart, I implore You to inflame with zeal for Your love and glory all the priests of the world, all missionaries and those whose office it is to preach Your word, that, on fire with holy zeal, they may snatch souls from the devil and lead them into the shelter of Your Heart, where forever they may glorify You. Amen 
A 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. Imprimatur: D. Card. Dougherty, Arch. Of Philadelphia A Prayer for Priests
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 the 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 my 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 close to Your heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen 
YEAR OF PRAYER FOR PRIESTLY VOCATIONS PRAYERHeavenly Father, Lord of the Harvest,
call forth vocations to the priesthood from our archdiocese and families. Jesus, Eternal High Priest, give us men willing to sacrifice and serve. Make their hearts after your own Sacred Heart. Holy Spirit, Everlasting Love between the Father and Son, strengthen, inspire, and set men on fire with divine charity. Grant them the courage to say yes to their vocation. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Mother of priests, comfort and protect your sons as they discern their call. With Saint Joseph, may they know your love and companionship as they deepen their relationship with Jesus. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. St. Anne, pray for us. St. John Vianney, patron saint of priests, pray for us. |
Daily Prayer for Priests
O God you love Your only begotten Son from all eternity and willed Him to become our great High Priest and the saving victim for the sins of the whole world. Send forth Your Holy Spirit, we beseech You, upon Your servants, the priests of His Holy Church. Grant that in these days of tribulation there may be a great increase in the number and holiness of vocations to the priesthood and a growing fervor on the part of all those who offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and minister to the care of the souls. O Jesus, Eternal Priest, keep these Your servants within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart. 
The Beautiful Hands of a Priest.
We need them in life's early morning, We need them again at its close; We feel their warm clasp of true friendship, We seek them while tasting life's woes. When we come to this world we are sinful, The greatest as well as the least. And the hands that make us pure as angels Are the beautiful hands of a priest. At the altar each day we behold them, And the hands of a king on his throne Are not equal to them in their greatness Their dignity stands alone. For there in the stillness of morning Ere the sun has emerged from the east, There God rests between the pure fingers Of the beautiful hands of a priest. When we are tempted and wander To pathways of shame and sin 'Tis the hand of a priest that will absolve us. Not once but again and again. And when we are taking life's partner Other hands may prepare us a feast But the hands that will bless and unite us, Are the beautiful hands of a priest. God bless them and keep them all holy, For the Host which their fingers caress, What can a poor sinner do better But to praise Thee who chose thee to bless When the death dews on our eyes are falling, May our courage and strength be increased To see, raised above us in blessing The beautiful hands of a priest. This poem was passed down orally in Ireland and around 1963 was given by Fr. Crowley of Dunsallagh to the Clare singer Tom Linehan who recorded it in song. See pages 93-95 of The Mount Callan Garland: Songs from the Repertoire of Tom Lenihan of Knockbrack, Miltown Malbay, County Clare by Tom Munnelly and Marian Deasy. 
Vocations
From Sister M. Faustina Kowalski 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. Amen |