Priest Prayer – 1
O Lord, my God, You renew the Church in every age by raising up priests outstanding in holiness, living witnesses of Your unchanging Love. In Your Plan for our salvation You provide shepherds for Your people.
Fill the hearts of young men with the spirit of courage and love that they may answer Your call generously. Give parents the grace to encourage vocations in their family by prayer and good example.
Raise up worthy priests for Your Altars and ardent, but gentle servants of the Gospel. Give the Church more priests and keep them faithful in their love and service. May many young men choose to serve You by devoting themselves to the service of Your people.
Priest Prayer – 2
O God, who hast appointed Thine only-begotten Son to be the eternal High Priest for the glory of Thy Majesty and the salvation of mankind; grant that they whom He hath chosen to be His ministers and the stewards of His mysteries, may be found faithful in the fulfilment of the ministry which they have received. Through the same Christ Our Lord.
Amen.
Priest Prayer – 3
Divine Saviour Jesus Christ, Thou are the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. Oh, be in a very special way the Good Shepherd of those poor lost priests who are also appointed by Thee to be leaders of Thy people, but who have broken the oath of their holy ordination and have become unfaithful to their exalted calling. Bestow upon these poorest of the poor the very fullness of that pastoral solicitude with which Thou dost so faithfully seek the sheep that are lost! Touch their hearts with the irresistible ray of grace which emanates from Thine all-merciful love! Enlighten their minds and strengthen their wills, that they may turn away from all sin and error and come back to Thy holy altar and to Thy people.
Amen.
Priest Prayer – 4
Heavenly Father, in your wisdom you have called certain women and men to a life of special consecration so that in prayerful observance of a lifestyle of poverty, chaste celibacy and obedience, they might be witnesses to us that as St. Paul says, “our true citizenship is in heaven.” Give them, Lord, the grace of joy and perseverance in their holy vocation. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen
Priest Prayer – 5
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 lives of sacrifice for souls seems but in van.
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.
Priest Prayer – 6
O Jesus, I pray for Your faithful and fervent priests; for Your unfaithful and tepid priests; for Your priests labouring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Your tempted priests; for Your lonely and desolate priest; 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 baptised me; the priests who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me 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 all close to Your heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.
Amen.
Priest Prayer – 7
O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests. It is both their glory and duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice and persecution. The words they say every day at the altar, “This is my Body, this is my Blood”, grant them to apply to themselves, “I am no longer myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself but by consecration another ”. O my God, I burn with the desire for the sanctification of Thy priests. I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities. Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty funcions, let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist, accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today a thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, laden themselves with gifts, to share these abundantly with their fellow-men.
Amen.