A Priests' Prayer for Priests
Father, we praise and thank you for choosing us to share in the one Priesthood of your Son. Help us to know that even in our weakness you love us and have need of us to renew your people. Help us to recognize your call to the laity and to encourage the role your Spirit summons forth from them in your Church. Enable us to be a constant sign of hope to all your people, especially those who are discouraged and exhausted. Send your Spirit to empower us to touch the lives of those who are cynical and alienated. Help us to pray better and to grow in holiness. Strengthen our hearts with a love that is chaste and unselfish. Be close to us in our loneliness and enrich us with the nearness of true friends. Help us to appreciate that we can be fruitful in the ministry of your Son only in union with our bishop, in solidarity with our fellow priests and in listening to your Spirit speaking in the lives of men and women in your Church. Father, build up in us the unity your Son prayed for with His apostles at His Last Supper. Remind us that our priestly fraternity calls us always to help one another. May we be true brothers to priests who are sick, overburdened with work, far from their homeland, lonely, or who have failed in some way. Father, we make our prayer to you, through your Son Jesus Christ, the first Priest, in union with the Holy Spirit, who anoints all priests, forever and ever. Amen.