Monday, August 03, 2009

August 4th - Feast of Saint John Mary Vianney (universal patron of all priests)




PRAYER FOR THE YEAR FOR PRIESTS


Lord Jesus,

In Saint John Mary Vianney you have deigned to give the Church a living image of yourself and a personification of your pastoral charity.

Help us during this Year for Priests to live good lives by being close to him and his example.

Grant that we may learn from the saintly Curé of Ars how to rest contentedly before the Holy Eucharist; to know that only your Word enlightens us each day; to know how tender is the love with which you welcome repentant sinners; how consoling is the confident abandonment to the care of the Holy and Immaculate Mother; how necessary is the ever-vigilant battle against Evil.

Grant, O Lord Jesus, that from the example of the holy Curé our young men may once again realise how necessary, humble and glorious is the priestly ministry which you wish to entrust to those who open themselves to your call.

Grant also to our communities - as once your did at Ars - those wonders of grace which you bring about when a priest knows to “make his parish a place of love”.

Grant that our Christian families may find their home to be within the Church – where your ministers may always be found – and that they may enrich the domestic hearth with the beauty of the Church.

Grant that the Charity of our pastors may enliven and enkindle the Charity of all the faithful, so that every vocation and every charism, given by your Holy Spirit, may be welcomed and honoured.

But above all, O Lord Jesus, bestow upon us the ardour and truth of the heart that we may come before your Heavenly Father, making our own the same words that St. John Mary Vianney prayed to Him:

I love You, O my God and my sole desire is to love You until the last breath of my life.
I love You, O infinitely lovable God and I prefer to die loving You than live one instant without loving You.
I love You, O my God, and I do not desire anything but heaven so as to have the joy of loving You perfectly.
I love You, O my God, and I fear hell, because there will not be the sweet consolation of loving You.
O my God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to say it in every beat.
Allow me the grace to suffer loving You, to love you suffering and one day to die loving You and feeling that I love You.
And as I approach my end, I beg you to increase and perfect my love of You.
AMEN.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fr.

Regarding sin, and its forgivness, a question that might be a bit scrupulous - if the formula used for absolution is correct other than one word, namley: I absolve you OF your sins as opposed to I absolve you FROM your sins - is that simply a small illict thing that has no effect on validity or does that little change render the absolution invalid. If so, does the penitent have to reconfess the mortal sins noted in that confession, or have they done their part to auriculary confess and not reconfess but rely on their next valid absolution to handle the problem?

Black Biretta said...

The absolution would be valid and no need for the penitent to re-confess. The English meaning of the words "of your sins" and "from your sins" is similar enough to retain valid intention. Were the priest to have changed the "I absolve you" to "we absolve you" that would be an invalid formula. If a penitent did not notice or was ignorant of what constitutes a valid form, then 'ecclesia supplet' and the confession is valid.

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