Year for Priests
Pope Benedict XVI has called the whole Church to celebrate a Year for Priests beginning on 19th June 2009, the Feast of the Sacred Heart. His purpose for this year is to encourage priests in their “striving for spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends” and to highlight “the importance of the priest’s role and mission in the Church and in contemporary society”.
This same year is the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney, the patron saint of priests, and also the occasion of the visit to England of the relics of St Therese of Lisieux – who from her Carmelite convent showed her life-long devotion to priests by praying for them, supporting them and corresponding with them.
In a recent letter from Cardinal Hummes, prefect to the Congregation for the clergy he asks that “this year be an occasion for a period of intense appreciation of the priestly identity, of the theology of the Catholic priesthood, and of the extraordinary meaning of the vocation and mission of priests within the Church and in society. May it be a year as well of religious and of public celebration which will bring the people – the local Catholic community – to pray, to reflect, to celebrate, and justly to give honour to their priests”.
If your parish or school are organising any events for this year please let us know on vocations@dabnet.org so that we can record them for our website.
A Priest's Prayer
Loving Father,
I praise you, I love you, I adore you.
Send your Holy Spirit to enlighten my mind
to the truth of your Son, Jesus,
Priest and Victim.
Through the same Spirit guide my heart to his Sacred Heart,
to renew in me a priestly passion
that I, too, might lay down my life upon the altar.
May your Spirit wash away my impurities
and free me from all my transgressions
in the Cup of Salvation,
Let only your will be done in me.
May the Blessed Mother of your dearly beloved Son,
wrap her mantle around me and protect me from all evil.
May she guide me to do whatever He tells me.
May she teach me to have the heart of St. Joseph, her spouse,
to protect and care for my bride.
And may her pierced heart inspire me
to embrace as my own your children
who suffer at the foot of the cross.
I humbly cry to her:
please be my consoling mother,
and help me to be a better son.
Lord, make me a holy priest,
inflamed with the fire of your love, seeking nothing
but your greater glory and the salvation of souls.
I humbly bless and thank you, my Father,
through the Spirit, in Christ Jesus,
your Son and my brother.
Amen.
O Mary, Queen of priests, pray for us.
Saint John Vianney, pray for us.