Prayer for Priests
Give us, Lord, new priests, shaped in Your image,
priests suited to today’s world,
who resist every kind of laxity and everything that is merely fashion;
priests filled with the Holy Spirit,
priests in love with You,
with the Eucharist, with the Word of God;
priests who pour out their lives on the altar of prayer,
priests who do not look at the clock
when they are in Your presence;
priests who know how to pray day and night,
able, like Jesus, to spend even whole nights in prayer;
priests who know how to teach prayer;
priests with a passion for the young, the poor and the marginalized;
priests who devote themselves to every kind of charity;
priests who know how to welcome the drug addict,
the prisoner, the young woman who has had an abortion,
the gay person, the broken family;
able to show tenderness and mercy
to all the despair in today’s world.
Lord, send us priests who are fighters,
humble, without strange ideas in their heads,
humble and faithful to the Church,
who teach love for the Church,
who correct in themselves the ills of the Church;
priests who point the finger at themselves
before they point it at the Church.
Send us priests without bourgeois stories,
priests trained in sacrifice,
who know how to speak to the young about sacrifice,
who live Gospel poverty,
who know how to share all they have with the poor.
Send us priests who are well formed intellectually,
who carry the banner of a theology with solid foundations,
able to resist the fashions of thought and the evasions of the world.
Send us priests who do not carry the yoke of those who act as if
they saw further than the Pope and the bishops.
Send us pioneering priests, creative priests,
with a heart as big as the heart of Christ,
who never tire of teaching,
of guiding, of educating and forming;
priests who are steady, persevering and composed.
Send us priests who are prophets, strong and humble,
who are not scandalized by any human misery.
Send us priests who feel they are sinners like us,
faithful to and proud of their vocation;
pure priests who carry the Gospel imprinted on their lives
more than in their words.
Lord,
give us the courage to ask for holy priests and to be at least a little worthy of them
through humble, persevering and courageous prayer.
Mary, Mother of priests and Mother of the Church,
add what is lacking in our prayer
and present it to Christ for us.
Amen!
Fr. Andrea Gasparino
(translated from Italian into Arabic by Robert Chaib – Zenit)
