Prayer For Priests # 19
Receive, Holy Father,
this Immaculate Host,
the Spirit of Sacrifice.
O my God,
pour it in its plenitude over your priests.
It is their glory as well as their duty
to consume themselves for souls;
to be victims,
to live,
to suffer often the scorn,
contempt and injustice of persecution.
May they contemplate what they say each day at the altar,
"This is My Body."
May they apply it to themselves,
"I am no longer me,
I am Jesus,
in Jesus crucified.
I am as the Bread and Wine,
a substance consecrated
which has ceased to be itself."
O my God,
I burn with the desire of the sanctification of your priests.
I desire that the hands that touch you
be loving and gentle;
and that tho lips which pronounce at the altar
the Words so sublime
do not lower themselves to trivial formulas.
May they keep within them
the attitude of their noble function.
May everyone find them simple
and great like the Host,
accessible to all
and superior to others.
O make that they carry from the Mass of today
the thirst of the Mass of tomorrow.
May they pour themselves out
on what they do;
may they have the grace to communicate it
in its fullness to others.
Prayer For Priests # 18
Prayer For Priests # 20