Prayer to the Holy Ghost for Priests

O Holy Ghost, Thou Friend of priests, send them daily Thy seven gifts, that they may live worthy of their calling, and become all to all in order to win souls for heaven. Give them patience with children, pity for the sick, humility toward the poor, and generosity toward the enemies of Thy holy Church. Make them active in teaching, untiring in the tribunal of penance, and zealous in distributing Holy Communion. Let them be terrible to the demons of hell and messengers of peace to all who are of good will.

May Thy blessing accompany them wherever they may go; may Thy peace enter with them in the dwellings they may visit; mayest Thou bless all whom they may bless. Make them true apostles and saints. Amen. Come Holy Ghost, a compilation of prayers in honor of the Divine Spirit.

1932 Fr. Lester Martin Dooley.

Prayer to the Holy Spirit by Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier (1851-1926)

"I am going to reveal to you the secret of sanctity and happiness. Every day for five minutes control your imagination and close your eyes to the things of sense and your ears to all the noises of the world in order to enter into yourself Then, in the sanctity of your baptized soul (which is the Temple of the Holy Spirit), speak to that Divine Spirit, saying to Him:

Oh, Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You.

Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.

Tell me what I should do; give me your orders.

I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me

and to accept all that You permit to happen to me.

Let me only know Your will. Amen.

If you do this, your life will flow along happily, serenely, and full of consolation, even in the midst of trials. Grace will be proportioned to the trial, giving you the strength to carry it, and you will arrive at the gate of Paradise, laden with merit. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of sanctity."

Devotion to the Holy Face: Carmelites, Buffalo NY

Holy Face Devotion in the Raleigh Diocese, NC:

• Anyone may join St. Catherine's in Wake Forest as we do phone devotion to the Holy Face every other Tuesday at 9:30 .Simply call. (4 FREE )1 701 892 5279; ACCESS CODE IS 7970106# and join in.
  
• Our Lady of Lourdes: 6:15 pm (Fallon Center) every Tuesday.
  

The principal object of the devotion to the Holy Face is to offer respectful love and homage to the Adorable Face of Jesus disfigured in the Passion; to make reparation for blasphemy and the neglect of Holy Days, which outrages Him afresh; and, lastly, to obtain of God the conversion of sinners and profaners of the Holy Days:

Eternal Father, we offer You the Holy Face of Jesus, covered with blood, sweat, dust, and spittle, in reparation for the crimes of communists, blasphemers, and for the profaners of the Holy Name and of the Holy Day of Sunday.

Offering of the Holy Face by St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars:

    Oh, my beautiful Immaculate Mother Mary, Queen of Sorrows, I beg of you, by the inexpressible agony you did endure at the foot of the Cross, to offer to the Eternal Father, in my stead, the Holy Face of your Divine Son, my Jesus, covered with Blood, wounds, and other indignities heaped upon Him during His Sacred Passion, and beg of Him to grant … (Here mention the grace or favor you desire). Amen.

The Divine Praises in Reparation for Blasphemies

    Blessed be God.
    Blessed be His Holy Name.
    Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
    Blessed be the Name of Jesus.
    Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.
    Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.
    Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
    Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
    Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
    Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
    Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
    Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother,
    Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste Spouse.
    Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.

I salute, adore, and love Thee, O Jesus, my Savior, covered anew with outrages by blasphemers, and I offer Thee, through the heart of Thy blessed Mother, the worship of all the Angels and Saints, as an incense and a perfume of sweet odor, most humbly beseeching Thee, by the virtue of Thy Sacred Face, to repair and renew in me and in all men Thy image disfigured by sin. Amen

A Prayer for the Church

O God, by Thy Holy Name have pity on us, protect us, and save us.
O good Jesus, in the sweet Name guard our Sovereign Pontiff; breathe into his
soul the spirit of the Comforter.

Jesus, thy Church is menaced with great trials! Holy Father, by the virtue of
thy salutary Name protect the Church of Jesus Christ. This was the last will of
thy Divine Son; it is the holy prayer which love prompted towards the end of his
life. Holy Father, keep in thy Name those thou hast given me (St. John chap. xxxvii. 11)

O most holy and worthy Mother, refuge of the Church, intercede for us and save us by
the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

St. Michael and the Holy Angels, guard the bark of Peter; disperse its enemies
by the Holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Source: Sister Saint-Pierre and the Work of Reparation. Manual of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face, 1887

Prayer to Obtain the Settlement of all Our Needs

    Oh, Eternal Father, since it has pleased our Divine Savior to reveal to mankind in our present century the power residing in His Holy Face, we now avail ourselves of this treasure in our great needs. Since our Savior Himself promised that by offering to You, oh Eternal Father, the Holy Face disfigured in the Passion, we can procure the settlement of all our affairs, and that nothing whatsoever will be refused us, we now come before Your Throne.

    Offering to You, oh God, this adorable Countenance, disfigured with painful bruises and covered with shame and confusion, we beg through the merits of this Holy Face to obtain these, our pressing needs.

    Grant us pardon, Eternal Father, for the worst crimes of our age, which are atheism, blasphemy, and the desecration of Your holy days. May this offering of the Holy Face of our Savior before Your throne obtain for us deliverance from these evils.

    Send us, oh God, many vocations to the priesthood and to the religious life, so that by their prayers, their works, and their sacrifices, they may spread the blessings of Your Church and confound Your enemies. Amen

More resources:

• The Feast of the Holy Face (World Report)
• League of Saint Martin
• Oratoire de la Sainte Face Tours, France
• Video From the Diocese of Tours (In French)

Apparition of the Cross over Jerusalem

Mary as Mother of Priests is in the Dominican Priory Church of the Holy Cross in Leicester. by Lawrence OP

The Priest's Saturday:

It is something quite simple and easy, yet immeasurable great in its results. You should make it a point to offer the Saturday after the First Friday of each month to your Savior, through the hands of Mary, the great mediatrix of all graces, for the sanctification of all the priests and students for the priesthood throughout the whole world. For this purpose you should give the Saturday wholly and entirely to Him, that is to say, Holy Mass, Holy Communion, all prayers, labors, sacrifices, joys and sorrows. Whatever you cannot do on this day (Holy Mass and Holy Communion) you ought to supply immediately on Sunday. So there is really nothing new for you to do. You merely offer up this Saturday (or even every Saturday or some other day) for the sanctification of priests. It is not a case of any sodality of fraternity or anything like that. Like the First Friday in honor of the Sacred Heart, the Priest's Saturday seeks to become something religiously observed by all the Catholics of the world.

(...) Concern about the holiness of priests is the concern of the Heart of the Divine Savior and of His blessed Mother. Therefore, you also should be sure to take part in this "apostolate to the apostles. " The Holy Father, all bishops, all priests, all students for the priesthood, and especially also your own pastor, earnestly beg of you thus to participate."

Priests' First Saturday

Divine Savior, Jesus Christ, Who hast entrusted the whole work of Thy redemption, the welfare and salvation of the world, to priests as Thy representatives, through the hands of Thy most holy Mother and for the sanctification of Thy priests and candidates for the priesthood I offer Thee this present day wholly and entirely, with all its prayers, works, sacrifices, joys, and sorrows.

Give truly holy priests who, inflamed with the fire of Thy divine love, seek nothing but Thy greater glory and the salvation of our souls.

And thou, Mary, good Mother of priests, protect all priests in the dangers of their holy vocation and, with the loving hand of a Mother, also lead back to the Good Shepherd those poor priests who have become unfaithful to their exalted vocation and have gone astray. Amen

In addition to the above make it a point also to recite frequently the following:

Divine Savior, Jesus Christ, Who Hast entrusted the weal and woes of Thy Holy Church to priests, with all the fervor of my heart I recommend to Thee the wants of my pastor and all priests. Enrich them more and more with true priestly sanctity. Give them generous, all embracing, apostolic hearts, full of love for Thee and for all Thy souls, so that they, being themselves sanctified in Thee, may sanctify us who are confided to their care, and may lead us safely to heaven. Bestow upon them in rich abundance all Thy priestly graces!

Let them ever give us a glowing example of love and fidelity towards Holy Mother Church, towards the Pope, and bishops, and grant that by word and example they may shine as models of every virtue.

Most loving Jesus, bless all their priestly labors and sacrifices! Bless all their prayers and words at the altar and in the confessional, in the pulpit, and in school, in confraternities, and at the bedside of the sick!
Protect and preserve them in all dangers from within and from without.

Divine Savior, give to Thy Church priests who abound in true holiness! Call many good boys and young men to the priestly and religious state! Aid and sanctify all those who are to become Thy priests! And to the souls of departed priests grant everlasting rest.

But to me give a true spirit of faith and humble obedience, in order that in my pastor I may ever behold the representative of God and willingly follow all his teachings. Amen

Source: Priest's Saturday Series, #2 Prayers and Devotions for Priest's Day. used with permission

Perseverance and Success: St. Helen, the pious mother of Constantine the Great, had conceived the purpose of restoring to the veneration of the faithful the saving wood whereon the Son of God expiated the sins of the world. When nearly eighty years old she repaired to Palestine, to carry out the holy search; but the pagans had for three centuries concealed from the reverence of the faithful this precious memorial, and no one knew what had become of it. Acting on vague suggestions, however, the princess undertook the task of directing excavations to be made towards the summit of Calvary, and, contrary to general expectation, first one cross was discovered, then a second, and subsequently a third, but without an indication to show the reliable worth of either. As perplexity increase, St. Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, caused a sick woman to be brought to the spot, who, by contact with one of the crosses, was straightway cured; he had a dead body exhumed, and the dead was restored to life. Thenceforth to doubt was no longer possible; this was the Holy Cross of the Savior; it was borne aloft in triumph, and Christendom at large raised its loud acclaim.

Moral reflection: In every undertaking, the beginning merely does not suffice. "Whosoever shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. St. Matthew 24. 13.

Little Pictorial of the Saints 1910 Abbe Lecanu

The way of the Cross for Priests

Holy Mass being celebrated on Gaudete Sunday by a priest of the Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer by Brett Crandall

"The lights of hope and joy, the shadows of despondency and sorrow are ever flitting over the surface of human life, teaching the heart the solemn lesson of detachment from earth and giving it glimpses of heaven, that city of perpetual brightness whose "light is the Lamb," the uncreated splendor of the Father. We need this succession of light and shade; continual prosperity would make us love the world, and we would forget that the days of our pilgrimage are few and evil, whilst lasting adversity would deaden the elasticity of the heart and drive it to despair. The Church knows the requirements of our nature in this respect and provides for them. The penitential seasons of Advent and Lent are succeeded by the joys of Christmas and the glories of Easter. The sorrows of Holy Week are interrupted by the Gloria of Holy Thursday, and then again the last notes of the Angelic Hymn die away in the wail of the Miserere of Tenebrae and the Improperia of Good Friday.

Advent has its Gaudete Sunday, when the Church bids her children rejoice in the Lord always, because He is near, because He is soon to be manifested to the world as the Babe of Bethlehem; so too on the fourth Sunday of Lent a cry of joy resounds through the office, Rejoice O! Jerusalem! Rejoice thou barren that bearest not. The time for the reconciliation of the penitents is approaching; the children that were dead in sin will come to life and be restored to the arms of their mother, and in anticipation her heart beats high with gladness. Then her eye turns to Palestine, ranges the dark sky that overhangs the scenes of the Passion and rests on the horizon just reddening with the first faint streaks of light from the Easter Sun. Sorrow and penance yield for a moment to the exultation of triumphant love and from her lisp breaks forth an anthem of gladness Laetare, Laetare, Rejoice, Rejoice."

The Sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church; Or, Flowers from the Garden of the Liturgy By Rev. William James BARRY, 1858