Our new Priests in Focus for the Week

Every Thursday we change the three priests names for the Weekly Priests in Focus. (We have now changed to add three priests per week.)

We are encouraging ladies to offer an Ave for the priests mentioned when visiting our site (You will see the above widget in the top righthand sidebar under our header) and also may wish to off an Ave for these priests any other time in the week that you may remember.

Of course you may also want to offer more than the Ave's, you may want to offer other prayers and sacrifices during the week for these particular priests, whatever you feel called to do, is a blessing.

This week's priests are:

Most Rev William Morris, Fr Albert Laforet & Fr Daniel Lu

A list of the priests we have prayed for individually here are in the right hand sidebar down the bottom.

If you have any priests you wish to nominate to be added to the Priests in Focus please email us and we would more than happy to add that priest to our list.

Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, bless us with holy, courageous priests!

Novena to Saint Therese of Lisieux

Today is the day to start a novena to St Therese of Liseux so that it finishes in time for her feast day (1st October) St Therese is a shining gem in the Church as a spiritual mother for priests. Her religious life was dedicated to praying and sacrificing for priests. Before entering Carmel, Therese went on pilgrimage to Rome with her father and sister, she had witnessed incongruous demeanour in some priests, in this she saw how much prayerful support and sacrifice priests needed in their vocations.

So we have dedicated this novena to priests who struggle in any way with their vocation asking St Therese to strengthen them in time of temptation and renew their commitment to living their vocation with zeal and sanctity.

NOVENA TO ST THERESE

O St. Therese of the Child Jesus, who during your short life on earth became a mirror of angelic purity, of love strong as death, and of wholehearted abandonment to God, now that you rejoice in the reward of your virtues, cast a glance of pity on me as I leave all things in your hands. Make my troubles your own, speak a word for me to Our Lady Immaculate, whose flower of special love you were -- to that Queen of Heaven "who smiled on you at the dawn of life" Beg her powerful intercession the grace I yearn for so ardently at this moment...and that she join with it a blessing that may strengthen me during life, defend me at the hour of death, and lead me straight on to a happy eternity. Amen.

O God, who did inflame with the Spirit of Love, the soul of your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, grant that we also may love you and make you much loved. Amen.

(Now recite below, the particular prayer for the day.)

DAY ONE

O Therese of the Child Jesus, well beloved and full of charity, in union with you, I reverently adore the majesty of God, and since I rejoice with exceeding joy in the singular gifts of grace bestowed upon you during your life, and your gifts of glory after death, I give Him deepest thanks for them; I beseech you with all my heart’s devotion to be pleased to obtain for me (Praying for priests in need). But if what I ask of you so earnestly does not tend to the glory of God and the greater good of my soul, do you, I pray, obtain for me that which is more profitable to both these ends. Amen.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

DAY TWO

Almighty God, giver of all good gifts, who did will that Blessed Therese, being watered by the heavenly dew of your guiding grace, should bloom in Carmel with the beauty of virginity and patience in suffering, grant that I your servant may go forward in the order of her sweetness an may be found worthy to become a devoted and loyal follower of Christ. Amen.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

DAY THREE

O Therese of the Child Jesus, lily of purity, ornament and glory of Carmel, I greet you, great saint, seraph of divine love. I rejoice in the favours our Lord so liberally bestowed on you. I humility and confidence I ask you to help me, for I know God has given you love and pity as well as power. Tell Him, now, I beseech you, of the favour I seek in this novena... Your request will crown my petition with success and bring joy to my heart. Remember your promise to do good here on earth. "I shall spend my heaven doing good on the Earth After death I shall let fall a shower of roses.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

DAY FOUR


O Little Flower of Jesus, who at an early age had your heart set on Carmel and in your brief earthly life did become the mirror of angelic purity, of courageous love and of whole hearted surrender to Almighty God, turn your eyes of mercy upon me who trusts in you. Obtain for me the favour I seek in this novena...and the grace to keep my heart and mind pure and clean. O dear saint, grant me to feel in every need the power of your intercession; help to comfort me in all the bitterness of this life and especially at its end, that I may be worth to share eternal happiness with you in heaven. Amen.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

DAY FIVE

O Little Flower of Carmel, Almighty God endowed you, consumed by love for him, with wondrous spiritual strength to follow the way of perfection during the days of your short life. Sickness touched you early but you remained firm in faith and prayer was your life. O pray for me that I may benefit by your intercession and be granted the favour I ask in this novena...

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

DAY SIX


O Little Flower of Jesus, you have shown yourself so powerful in your intercession, so tender and compassionate toward those who honour you and invoke you in suffering and distress, that I kneel at your feet with perfect confidence and beseech you most humbly and earnestly to take me under your protection in my present necessity and obtain for me the favour I ask in this novena...Vouchsafe to recommend my request to Mary, the merciful Queen of Heaven, that she may plead my cause with you before the throne of Jesus, her divine Son.. Cease not to intercede for me until my request is granted.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

DAY SEVEN


Therese of the Child Jesus, most loving Saint, in union with you I adore the divine Majesty. My heart is filled with joy at the remembrance of the marvellous favours with which God blessed your life on earth and of the great glory that came to you after death. In union with you, I praise God, and offer him my humble tribute of thanksgiving. I implore you to obtain for me, through your powerful intercession, the greatest of all blessings -- that of living and dying in the state of grace. I also beg of you to secure for me the special favour I seek in this novena...

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

DAY EIGHT

O glorious St. Therese, who, burning with the desire of increasing the glory of God, invariably attended to the sanctification of your soul by the constant practice of prayer and charity so that, becoming in the Church a model of holiness, you are now in Heaven the protector of all those who have recourse to you in faith, look down upon me who invokes your powerful patronage and join your petition to mine that I be granted the favour I seek in this novena...

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.






DAY NINE



O St. Therese, seraphic virgin, beloved spouse of our Crucified Lord, you who on earth did burn with a love so intense toward your God and my God, and now glow with a bright and purer flame in paradise, obtain for me, I beseech you, a spark of that same holy fire which shall help me to put things of the world in their proper place and live my life always conscious of the presence of God. As I conclude my novena I also beg of you to secure for me the special favour I seek at this time...

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

THE BEAUTIFUL HANDS OF A PRIEST

Fr Tom Mangattuthazhe posted this beautiful poem on his Facebook page.
Please pray for him and the Mission Home Manja minor seminary of the diocese of Diphu India, where he is the Rector. More to come on the seminary soon. For now please pray for him, all the other priests and seminarians.

THE BEAUTIFUL HANDS OF A PRIEST

We need them in life's early morning,
We need them again at its close;
We feel their warm clasp of true friendship,
We seek them when tasting life's woes.

At the altar each day we behold them,
And the hands of a king on his throne
Are not equal to them in their greatness;
Their dignity stands all alone.

And when we are tempted and wander,
To pathways of shame and of sin,
It's the hand of a priest that will absolve us,
Not once, but again and again.

And when we are taking life's partner,
Other hands may prepare us a feast,
But the hand that will bless and unite us--
Is the beautiful hand of a priest.

When the hour of death comes upon us,
May our courage and strength be increased,
By seeing raised over us in blessing--
The beautiful hands of a priest.

God bless them and keep them all holy,
For the Host which their fingers caress;
When can a poor sinner do better,
Than to ask Him to guide them and bless?
Author Unknown


Fr Peyton - the epitome of a good and holy priest.

Our new Priests in Focus for the Week

Every Thursday we change the three priests names for the Weekly Priests in Focus. (We have now changed to add three priests per week.)

We are encouraging ladies to offer an Ave for the priests mentioned when visiting our site (You will see the above widget in the top righthand sidebar under our header) and also may wish to off an Ave for these priests any other time in the week that you may remember.

Of course you may also want to offer more than the Ave's, you may want to offer other prayers and sacrifices during the week for these particular priests, whatever you feel called to do, is a blessing.

This week's priests are:

Fr Eric Albertson, Fr Jack Herron & Fr Anthony Ananwa

A list of the priests we have prayed for individually here are in the right hand sidebar down the bottom.

If you have any priests you wish to nominate to be added to the Priests in Focus please email us and we would more than happy to add that priest to our list.

Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, bless us with holy, courageous priests!

Four Ways to Foster Vocations - Archbishop Timothy Dolan

Here is a very good article on what the wonderful Archbishop of New York sees as the four most important ways of fostering vocations.

I love the archbishops quote that "marriages that are lifelong, life-giving and faithful" are the best nurturing ground for a vocation.

Pope Benedict with his family

Prayer That A Child May Be A Priest Or Religious

Blessed mother, Mary, the greatest joy and honour of a parent is to train their child, by word and example, to dedicate their entire life to loving your Son, Jesus. All of us are called to this love by whatever vocation we have. In the providence of God, I have been called to love God as a parent, and with your help and intercession, my child has grown to know and love God. I now pray that my child might have a vocation to serve God in a special way by entering into His holy service.

Freely do I give my child (mention name here) to God, for God freely gave my child to me. And in His all-pervading love for us both, we will be reunited in heaven. Let my child see the true values of living in holy and constant communion with your Divine Son. Encourage in the heart of my child a willingness to bear with any burden in order to love God more faithfully, and to love everyone in the world for God's sake.

Please make my child worthy of a call from God to a special and total dedication to God's family here on earth. I ask this of you, holy mother, only because of my deep love for your Son. Help me always to be a good example in my home, so that my child can learn how God's love has been ever with us.
Amen.

Archbishop Dolan: On Fostering Vocations by Tim Drake


New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan; Over the weekend, 530 Serra Club members from 12 different countries gathered at their annual international conference in Omaha, Neb. “No one offers more support and encouragement for vocations than Serra,” said the host, Omaha Archbishop George Lucas.

Among the attendees was New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan. Archbishop Dolan told Serrans that vocations can be promoted by the laity in four distinct ways.

The first, said Archbishop Dolan, is by emphasizing the vocation of marriage and family. Citing data from a Pew Research Center study, Archbishop Dolan stated that only about 50% of Catholic young people are approaching the sacrament of marriage.

“Taking care of the first crisis will take care of the second,” said Archbishop Dolan. “Vocations to the priesthood and religious life come from lifelong, life-giving faithful marriages.”

Secondly, Archbishop Dolan spoke of re-creating a culture of vocations.

“There were no good old days in the Church,” said Archbishop Dolan. “Every era in Church history has its horrors and difficulties.”

“We need to recapture the climate/tenor/tone/ambiance in the Church where a boy or man isn’t afraid to publicly say, ‘I want to be a priest,’ and where his family, relatives, neighbors, parish, priest, sisters, teachers and even non-Catholics are robustly supportive.”


Thirdly, Archbishop Dolan said that the laity need to not be afraid to ask their priests to help them be holy.

“For a faithful Catholic, a priest is essential for growth in holiness because he gives us the sacraments, and without the sacraments we can’t be holy,” said Archbishop Dolan. “When you ask us to help you be holy, we realize that we must be holy, and you remind us that there is something unique in the Church that only a priest can do.”

Finally, Archbishop Dolan said that priests must be reminded that they are here to help the laity get to heaven.

“A priest is an icon of the beyond, the eternal, the transcendent,” said Archbishop Dolan. “Heaven gives us hope and meaning in life.”

An Inspiring Witness to Vocations.

I'm sure many of you may have seen this young man's interview. I thought it would be very apt to have it available here for a few reasons.

One: This young man is an inspiration to other young men who may be looking into the priesthood, especially in a world so secular which lacks understanding of the sacrifices these men make. Look at what this young man is giving up, to him not as much as he is gaining, as he will take up a life serving the Lord and King. In the eyes of the world he is giving up so much, a professional sporting career, money and with a very handsome appearance, a chance to live a life of conjugal happiness.
Two: This young man will need a lot of prayers. If you watch this video to the end you will understand what I mean. His words have much wisdom in them as he tries to deflect what the interviewer, in her ignorance of what his vows demand, makes reference to.
Three: He is asking for our prayers to sustain him in his long years ahead studying toward his ordination.
Four: As we will be launching a new spot on the blog for Seminarian's Spiritual Support I thought this would be a nice lead up to other related stories.
Keep an eye out - coming soon.

Here is a great in-depth article about Chase Hildgenbrinck's call to the priesthood.

This is a link sent through to an article from the Washington Times about Chase Hilgenbrincks Call also. His rationale of "Delayed obedience is disobedience", is a very worthy reminder of when God calls, don't delay - act, no matter what - be brave and He will sustain you.

Our new Priests in Focus for the Week

Every Thursday we change the three priests names for the Weekly Priests in Focus. (We have now changed to add three priests per week.)

We are encouraging ladies to offer an Ave for the priests mentioned when visiting our site (You will see the above widget in the top righthand sidebar under our header) and also may wish to off an Ave for these priests any other time in the week that you may remember.

Of course you may also want to offer more than the Ave's, you may want to offer other prayers and sacrifices during the week for these particular priests, whatever you feel called to do, is a blessing.

Here are this week's priests:

Fr J Viglas, Fr Joseph Mary McShane & Fr Carmelo Mifsud

A list of the priests we have prayed for individually here are in the right hand sidebar down the bottom.

If you have any priests you wish to nominate to be added to the Priests in Focus please email us and we would more than happy to add that priest to our list.

Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, bless us with holy, courageous priests!

First Sunday of the Month reminder

One of the special inititives of this blog is to encourage mothers throughout the world to pray for vocations within their families in a similar way that the Mothers of Lu had many years before.

For those ladies who do not have any children, praying specifically for young relatives or for vocations from your parish or diocese would be very fitting.

To read the story of the Mothers of Lu published in the Adoration, Reparation and Spiritual Mother for Priests booklet, visit our posting, In Imitation of the Mother's of Lu.

The mothers in the small Italian town of Lu prayed for vocations in this way:

"Under the direction of their parish priest, Msgr. Alessandro Canora, they gathered every Tuesday for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, asking the Lord for vocations. They received Holy Communion on the first Sunday of every month with the same intention. After Mass, all the mothers prayed a particular prayer together imploring for vocations to the priesthood.

Through the trusting prayer of these mothers and the openness of the other parents, an atmosphere of deep joy and Christian piety developed in the families, making it much easier for the children to recognize their vocations."

From this flowed an abundance of vocations, as the photo above shows, 'the labours called to the harvest' which was quite notable in it's day for such a very small village...323 vocations in fact, 152 priests (diocesan and religious), and 171 nuns belonging to 41 different congregations. As many as three or four vocations came from some of these families.

This week in our Priests in Focus, we are praying for three priests who are all brothers, please remember them in prayer!

Here at Spiritual Motherhood for Priests, we hope to create a 'virtual' online gathering of mothers. We have our Adoration list in the righthand sidebar for ladies to show our solidarity together in offering one hour adoration a month. If you wish to have your name added to that list, please email us

We encourage mothers to offer their Holy Communion for family vocations on the First Sunday of the Month (the day chosen by the Mothers of Lu.) As well as offering this prayer below at Mass which was first composed for the Mothers of Lu:

We look forward to joining with you all in prayer and adoration, in union in the Mystical Body of Christ, praying for vocations within our families, within our parish!

Our new Priests in Focus for the Week

Every Thursday we change the three priests names for the Weekly Priests in Focus. (We have now changed to add three priests per week.)

We are encouraging ladies to offer an Ave for the priests mentioned when visiting our site (You will see the above widget in the top righthand sidebar under our header) and also may wish to off an Ave for these priests any other time in the week that you may remember.

Of course you may also want to offer more than the Ave's, you may want to offer other prayers and sacrifices during the week for these particular priests, whatever you feel called to do, is a blessing.

This week's priests I am very happy to say come from the same family and are in the same order together! The Gordon brothers are now Fathers with the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter, what a blessing!

Fr James Gordon FSSP, Fr Terrance Gordon FSSP & Fr Dennis Gordon FSSP

A list of the priests we have prayed for individually here are in the right hand sidebar down the bottom.

If you have any priests you wish to nominate to be added to the Priests in Focus please email us and we would more than happy to add that priest to our list.

Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, bless us with holy, courageous priests!

Indulgenced First Thursday

Before each First Thursday in the Year of the Priest, we remind others that the day is nearly upon us.

Here is the requirements for the lay person to obtain a Plenary and Partial indulgence for this day. These indulgences can be for ourselves or we can offer them for a holy soul in purgatory, to offer our indulgences for a departed priest is another way to show our deep gratitude for these special ministers of the Lord.

Steps for the lay faithful to receive a Plenary Indulgence for the First Thursday

Attend Holy Mass

Receive the Sacrament of Penance

(can be transferred to either weekend if confessional times are set then)

Pray for priests

(Check out our lefthand sidebar for many lovely prayers for priests.)

Pray for the intentions of the Holy Father

(Offering an Our Father and a Hail Mary for his intentions)

For the mind to be detached from any sin

Steps for the sick and elderly and those who cannot leave the home, to receive Plenary Indulgence

For the mind to be detached from any sin

With the intention of fulfilling as soon as possible the three usual conditions

(confession, Holy Mass, Pray for the intentions of the Holy Father)

Confidently offer the illnesses and hardships of their lives to God through Mary Queen of Apostles.

Recite duly approved prayers for the sanctification of priests

Obtaining a Partial Indulgence

The Partial Indulgence is granted to all the faithful every time they devoutly recite five Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glorias, or another expressly approved prayer, in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to obtain that priests be preserved in purity and holiness of life.

Here is a prayer to the Sacred Heart for Priests written by St Therese of Lisieux:

(click open to enlarge)