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Special Message on this World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests
Friday, June 11, 2021
Today we celebrate the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests. It takes place each year on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in this month dedicated to His Sacred Heart.
There is no doubt that our world, our Church, is going through another period of adjustment and correction. There are so many issues dividing us and honestly much of it comes from misunderstanding, a basic lack of knowledge of the Truth. I believe…I need to believe…that the laity really do want to know what the Church teaches, what She has taught for almost 2000 years. Knowing that truth, believing that truth, could resolve so many of the issues.
We need strong faithful priests and bishops who are willing to speak and teach that truth to us. A phrase that comes to mind is “unapologetic apologetics”. We deserve it. Ven. Abp. Fulton J. Sheen knew it. Many of our current bishops and priests know it. But sadly, many do not.
This time in history provides a unique opportunity for us. Here in the United States, our Conference of Catholic Bishops is holding its General Assembly from June 16-18. My prayer is that they use this time to go back to our Truth. Come out of the meeting with a message that honors the infallible teaching of Holy Mother Church, unwavering in its meaning and significance. All of the wavering and compromise has left many wondering what the truth of the teaching is, or at least unsure of their ability to speak it with boldness. Well, I refuse. I will not fail to speak my faith with boldness. It is similar to disciplining a child. If he never gets a consistent message, and consistent consequences for challenging what he is taught, he will never learn what is expected of him. And trying to reinforce the teachings becomes much harder and takes much longer. He never really has a chance to learn from his history.
A priest recently spoke in his homily about the fact that, if we don’t learn from our history, we are bound to repeat it. He’s right. We need to learn. Erasing our history because someone finds it problematic means we cannot learn from it.
It also means that “everything that’s old is new again”. The challenges that we as a global Catholic Church are now facing are things we’ve faced before. And we overcame them, thanks in large part to priests who were willing to die to teach us the truths of our faith.
I’ve been listening to a song recently by Fr. Bill Quinlivan from the Diocese of Buffalo. It is entitled “Mass Rocks”, and speaks so powerfully about one such time in our history, though certainly not the only one. I’ve included the full lyrics and a link to the song at the end of this message with his permission. Let me just quote part of one verse here: “… recall penal times and tears. Teach each generation this history and the legacy of those years.” Teach us, but teach us the truth worth dying for. Don’t water it down. Don’t cave to pressures that want the Church to change it. Own it. We are praying for you because we know this road is hard.
Lord, we pray for the Church, that it may always be faithful to the gospel. Amen.
May God bless you all,
Laurie
https://prayersforpriests.com/
Find Fr. Bill Quinlivan at https://frbillsings.com/
For more information about the Mass rocks:
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/ireland-s-mass-rocks-are-becoming-popular-again
https://www.irishcatholic.com/upon-these-rocks
https://ahrc.ukri.org/research/readwatchlisten/features/mass-rocks/
Mass Rocks, by Fr. Bill Quinlivan (https://youtu.be/InZchMxcveE)
REFRAIN
To the Mass rocks came the priest for the holy sacrifice in persecuted years. And though they faced great danger sure, faith came sailing through tidal waves of fear. Our Church was suppressed by an enemy but our mighty God has a higher law. And while sentinels stood to keep people safe, much heroic faith lived out is what they saw.
Contented with all our blessings, should days be full of peace, please do not forget the bravery of the best of Irish priests. Today if you’re timing their homilies, recall penal times and tears. Teach each generation this history and the legacy of those years!
Refrain
They met their people in the field to share the Eucharistic feast. Beaten, betrayed and exiled too, somehow zeal and hope increased! They stayed in lonely hiding places, camouflaged, in disguise. They risked their lives to pastor flocks, servants proven to be prudent and wise.
Refrain
To the Mass rocks came the priest.”
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Special Holy Thursday Message
Thursday, April 1, 2021
On this night we celebrate the institution of the Holy priesthood. We are praying for you. Tell us what you need. If there is anything you want your people to pray for specifically, please let us know. We love you, and we want to strengthen you in your vocation.
God bless you,
Laurie
https://prayersforpriests.com/
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Monday, March 16, 2020
Special Prayer for Our Priests
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Wednesday, January 15, 2020
As we wind down from the holidays and settle into Ordinary Time, we figured we would give you a quick update about what is going on with the site.
First of all, we want to thank you all for your patience lately. As some of you know, Laurie had a car accident on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. She was lucky enough, by Mary’s intercession and God’s grace, to only break two fingers. Unfortunately they were the index and middle fingers of her right hand. Of course she’s right handed. Let’s just say she makes a terrible lefty and leave it at that.
Elena relocated to the Rochester area last summer to serve as Faith Formation Director for St. Katharine Drexel Parish. Her duties are more intense and engrossing, but she is grateful to be able to continue with this ministry — even if she’s late with edits! What an honor to be able to pray together for our priests and our church.
Since we began the site in May of last year, we have expanded far beyond our US borders. So far we have reached France, India, Italy, the Philippines, Uganda, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
We’ve prayed for every priest in the Diocese of Rochester (NY) by name at least once, and all priests every day. Not one prayer is wasted!
Now for what’s next!
~ Elena is putting together our list of novenas for this year, no small task given the number of great saints we have in our extended family of faith.
~ We have some great photographs that we will be adding to the site over the next couple of months.
~ We continue to work at getting calendars from additional dioceses, and will add those as we are able. If you are from a diocese that is not currently listed, and your diocese has a prayers for priests calendar, please send us the information.
~ Laurie has been adding data to the calendar pages. She is still trying to find a way to get the calendars to display. Hopefully soon!
~ We will soon be using Mail Chimp for the delivery of our prayers and novenas. We’ll keep you posted as the time gets closer.
Thanks for praying with us,
Elena & Laurie
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Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Great News!
I’m glad that this is an off week Wednesday. Some great news was released this morning.
Venerable Fulton J Sheen is scheduled to be beatified on December 21, 2019!
The beatification ceremony will take place at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, Illinois.
Here are links to two articles about the beatification:
https://www.pjstar.com/news/20191118/vatican-approves-beatification-of-fulton-sheen
https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2019/11/19/venerable-fulton-sheen-to-be-beatified-in-december/
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August 28, 2019
We wanted to take the opportunity on this non-novena week to talk a little bit about this site. We may do this again in the future as situations present themselves.
First of all, we’ve gone international! Four countries and counting. Sure, it’s small, but still, prayer reaches everywhere.
Some of you have asked where the pictures on the website came from. All of them were taken by Elena or myself.
This site was started in the diocese of Rochester, New York. That’s why all of the priests that we list out are within this diocese. However, on the diocese page (click on priests, then on dioceses) you will see links to many other dioceses. Just click on your diocese to find your calendar. If your diocese is not listed, we would love to add a link. If you know that your diocese has a monthly prayer calendar, send that to us on the contact page and we will make sure we have it added to our list. Once we get organized 🙂 we will list them alphabetically. There will also be a calendar for priests who have touched our lives in a particular way who are not on any other current Diocesan calendars, as well as priests from religious orders such as Carmelites, Dominicans, etc. We each have a few in our lives who has made an impact on us, and we want to make sure that we keep them in our prayers as well.
You will also notice on the priests page that we have a section for newly ordained priests. We’ll be adding them as we find them, but feel free to send names along to us.
We’ve been adding to the birthday and ordination anniversaries calendars, and will have them linked to the website soon. Again, if you have any priests that you want added, send me their information and we’ll be happy to add them.
So, I guess that one of the most important pages maybe the contact page. If you have questions, concerns, thoughts or suggestions, or any information to add, please send it via the contact page.
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We are a small informal prayer group made up of faithful Catholics, praying for the sanctification of our Church and our clergy, both here and abroad. We are doing this in a few different ways.
We will be praying a series of novenas, beginning every other Wednesday. I’ll send a notification for each one.
Some of us will be fasting on Thursdays for our priests. It would also be wonderful if some of us could get together once a month to pray a Rosary or a Divine Mercy Chaplet.
Many diocese have apostolates such as Monthly Prayer Requests for Priests, with each priest being assigned to a day for us to pray for them.
We could consider sending cards of encouragement and gratitude to our local priests for their day on the calendar as well.
We are open to any and all suggestions that will help strengthen our Church and our current priests, and will increase new vocations to the priesthood.
Let the praying begin!
prayingforpriests.wordpress.com 