Prayer for Priests

O Jesus, eternal Priest,

keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,

where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands,

which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips,

daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,

sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and

shield them from the world's contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit and

may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here and in heaven their beautiful and

everlasting crown. Amen.

 

What a beautiful prayer by St Therese, please remember to pray for them...

 

No priest no eucharist!

Prayer of Consecration to the Divine Mercy

Jesus, the Divine Mercy, I consecrate my entire life, from this day on, to You without reserve. Into your hands I abandon my past, my present, and my future, from this day forward, make me a true follower of Your teaching, let Your Divine Mercy Image, protect my home and my family from all the powers of evil in this world today.

May all who venerate it never perish, may it be their joy in life, their hope in death, and their glory in eternity. Amen.

You Have to Have a Plan to Have a Change of Plan! Part One

This has been a saying of mine for many years, but the real secret is having the grace to allow God to change our plans for His.

After all He says in Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".

The problem is that He does not always pass on this information to us!

And I am sure he does expect us to make our own plans because in Luke 14 He says " “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?"

So He obviously wants us to be intentional about what we do and not just go with the flow.

So we go about our lives making our plans....

About 3 years ago I had some plans, good plans, well thought out plans, God honouring plans. So, you would think that Father God would look down on me and smile and bless my little plans, all so carefully worked out with Him in mind. You'd think.......

Good job I've read the whole book and know that it doesn't always work like that!

Isaiah 55:8-9 says  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth,  so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Not that there was anything wrong with my thoughts, its simply that He is God and I am not!

My plans were nice and comfy and made me feel good about how I was doing in the Christian life....

For instance, I looked at how I had been reading the bible over the almost nine years I had been a Christian.

Not too shabby I thought to myself, as well as reading here there and everywhere thoughout the bible I had read it through several times using different plans and methods.

Ticking off a Printed Purple Plan (I love purple)
Straight Through From Cover to Cover
Following a Chronilogical Plan
Using a Perpetual Plan
Printing off a Mini Sized Plan
Marking off in My Bible itself.

I was quite pleased with myself....

Do you see the problem?

Did you catch a glimpse of the Pharisee raising its little head there?

Sadly I didn't spot it.......

And so I carried on with my plans.

Over the coming 3 years  I would follow the Victory Reading Plan (which not only covers the bible, but which goes over certain bits twice). It is a great plan and I would highly recommend it.

It has three columns and I was going to use each column in a different way each year for three years.

1 Read with my son
2 Read and meditate on
3 Read and study themes

By the end of these three years I would be fifty and my son sixteen.

I would have read through the whole bible with my son and we would have discussed it together.

I would have completed what I refer to as my colouring in bible - the one I use for highlighting different themes.

I would have completed what I call my mirror bible - the one I use to meditate on the word, underlining verses to use for prayer in tuquoise, instructions in purple, special women's verses in pink and adding a heart to special verses God has given to me.

See I told you great plans, godly plans. God's plans??? Apparently not!

You see my Father knows my heart and He knew that I did not want to be like one of the Phasisees around the table.

If you want to know what he did about it read part two....

Making a New Chaplet...

Saint Gemma is my patron saint.....

The chaplet of Saint Gemma Galgani, has a medal of her likeness and is made up of 25 beads representing her life on earth. The 20 Crystal beads are for her Memorial day April 1, and 5 Aquamarine beads are for her Birthday March 12. The center roses are for your petition to her when praying the chaplet.
How to Pray
On the medal pray:
The Most Glorious St Gemma Prayer: O Most Glorious St. Gemma, Mirror of innocence and penance, may we who humbly invoke thy Heavenly intercession obtain from thee the grace of purity in all our thoughts, words and actions. Amen
On the set of 2 beads pray:
O my soul, bless Jesus. Never forget the many graces He has given thee. Love that God who so loves thee. Lift thyself up to Him, who has lowered Himself for thee; show thyself as He shows Himself with thee; be clean of heart, be pure. Love thy Jesus, who has lifted thee out of so much misery. Love thy God, bless thy Lord
Saint Gemma Galgani
On the center:
Pray the Saint Gemma Petition Prayer.
"Dearest St. Gemma. Sister and friend in Christ; You know the value of suffering and the blessings of healing. Please pray that Our Lord will heal me/us and my/our family of my/our, physical, emotional and spiritual ailments, Through Christ, Our Lord. Amen"
On the first set of 5 pray:
"Jesus, let me come to thee, I thirst for thy life giving blood."
Followed by 5 Hail Mary's
On the next bead pray:
If I saw the gates of Hell open and I stood on the brink of the abyss, I should not despair, I should not lose hope of mercy, because I should trust in You, my God.
Followed by One Our Father
Continue to the end of the chaplet in this pattern.
At the end of the chaplet pray again The Most Glorious St. Gemma Prayer.