A Prayer for Our Priests on Holy Thursday
On this Holy Thursday, in a special way we are invited to pray for
our priests. We ask all parishioners to join in prayer for our pastor
Fr. David Hankus, our pastor emeritus, Fr. John Sebahar, and all the
priests who assist us at St. James, as well as those who have been
a blessing to us throughout our lives.
A PRAYER FOR PRIESTS
O loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your
sons who are close to you because of their priestly ordination and
because of the power which they have received to carry on the work
of Christ in a world which needs them so much.
Be their comfort, be their joy, be their strength, and especially help
them to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy.
Lord Jesus, we your people pray to You for our priests. You have
given them to us for our needs. We pray for them in their needs.
We know that You have made them priests in the likeness of your
own priesthood. You have consecrated them, set them aside,
anointed them, filled them with the Holy Spirit, appointed them to
teach, to preach, to minister, to console, to forgive,
and to feed us with Your Body and Blood.
Yet we know, too, that they are one with us and share our human
weaknesses. We know too that they are tempted to sin and
discouragement as are we, needing to be ministered to, as do we,
to be consoled and forgiven, as do we. Indeed, we thank You for
choosing them from among us, so that they understand us as we
understand them, suffer with us and rejoice with us, worry with us
and trust with us, share our beings, our lives, our faith.
We ask that You give them this day the gift You gave Your chosen
ones on the way to Emmaus: Your presence in their hearts, Your
holiness in their souls, Your joy in their spirits. And let them see You
face to face in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread.
We pray to You, O Lord, through Mary the mother of all priests,
for Your priests and for ours. Amen.
—JOHN CARDINAL O’CONNOR