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,
annointed 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.
by John Cardinal O'Connor
