Shelter Them in Thy Heart
I have often felt the call to pray for priests.
Heavy on my heart lately is the need to do so.
Eventhough my focus of late has been on praying for priests, how they +need+ our prayers....I still became choked up today at the "coincidence" that upon leaving the confessional box the forgiving priest asked me to pray for him!
A PRAYER FOR PRIESTS
By the late John J Cardinal Carberry
Keep them; I pray Thee, dearest Lord.
Keep them, for they are Thine
The 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 life of sacrifice
For souls seems but in vain.
Keep them and 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.
3 comments:
It has been a very heartbreaking week in the news. It has been weighing heavy on me, too. I love that Prayer for Priests. I had forgotten about it.
As a young girl, my mother spent her summers helping an aunt who worked as a parish housekeeper. She has always impressed upon me the sacrifice priests choose to make when they are ordained, and how much they must have loved Jesus to make that choice, no matter what happens later in their priesthood. She also often comments what a very lonely life it can be. "A member of every family, but belonging to none," she often says.
Loneliness will take a soul very quickly down one of two roads.
I seem to get this request from our priests in the confessional on and off, too. I always tell my kids that priests are especially in need of prayers, as God holds them to a higher standard, being, as they are, responsible for so many souls and blessed by God with a religious vocation.
Our pastor always asks me to pray for him, as I leave the confessional. It is very humbling. May God bless and protect our priests!
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