A Vocation Prayer that Brought 30 First Masses in 30 Years
My good friend, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (Fr. Z), alerted me to a prayer that was said at the beginning of every homily in his home parish.
Fr. Z writes …
“Here is a prayer that perhaps parish priests will pick up and use at all Sunday and Holy Day Masses, perhaps immediately after the Gospel:
Leader asks all to kneel.
LEADER: Let us ask God to give worthy priests, brothers and sisters to His Holy Church.
ALL: O God, we earnestly beseech Thee to bless this (arch)diocese with many priests, brothers and sisters, who will gladly spend their entire lives to serve Thy Church and to make Thee known and loved.
LEADER: Bless our families. Bless our children.
ALL: Choose from our homes those who are needed for Thy work.
Amen.
LEADER: Mary, Queen of the Clergy.
ALL: Pray for us. Pray for our priests and religious. Obtain for us many more.
This prayer – which if memory serves was penned by the late Archbishop Brady of St. Paul and Minneapolis – was said by the congregation at my home parish, St. Agnes in St. Paul, for decades at every Sunday Mass. Hearing and saying the prayer every Sunday played a role in my own vocation. During the time of the late pastor Msgr. Schuler, a First Mass was celebrated at that parish every year for over 30 years.”
We have decided that, on this Holy Thursday, when the Church celebrates the institution of the Eucharist as the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and the institution of the Sacrament of the Priesthood, we will begin every homily, from now on, at St. Mary of Pine Bluff by offering this prayer for vocations.
If priests are interested in ordering these prayer cards, I will make them available at RomanCatholicGear.com.
