Be part of the movement to pray for our priests! There are no meetings and you choose the time you pray.
It takes about 30 minutes, only two percent of an entire day! While you are encouraged to pray all of the prayers in the booklet, any prayers you say are a wonderful gift for our priests!
Why It’s Important
Our priests directly influence us, explained Fr. Jerry Byrd in a recent homily on Good Shepherd Sunday. He quoted from the Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard:
“If the priest is a saint (the saying goes), the people will be fervent; if the priest is fervent, the people will be pious; if the priest is pious, the people will at least be decent. But if the priest is only decent, the people will be godless”
The Basics of the Prayer Cenacle
The cenacle is the upper room of the Last Supper Christ had with his 12 apostles. It is also where Christ instituted the holy priesthood. There are three main components of the prayer cenacle for priests:
1. Daily recitation of the prayers in the booklet.
2. Daily recitation of the Angelus (6am, noon, 6pm) and at least 5 decades of the Holy Rosary. The intention of the Rosary can be for any intention.
3. Some sort of daily penance, fasting, or mortification offered for our Holy Father, our Bishop, our Priests, and our Seminarians. These need not be extreme. Small offerings are powerful and effective.
What Are Small Offerings?
The Daily Offering prayer captures the attitude of small offerings stating I offer up my “prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world.”
We can offer our day for our priests: the frustrations we face at work or home, unfortunate setbacks, or the long wait at the doctor’s office. We can skip the second cup of coffee, deny ourselves some small pleasure such as the chocolate bar, for our priests as a sacrifice. We can ignore the rude person in line and say a prayer instead. God takes all our little offerings that are made with the heart! Basically, anything that goes wrong in your day can be offered up for something! In this case it’s for our priests and bishops!
We can offer our good actions for our priests as well. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says (quoting St. Augustine), “Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice” (#2099). So every good action can be offered to God. That would be an act of charity — letting someone go first in line, doing our daily duty cheerfully, or saying a kind word to everyone we meet. The list is endless.
Get the Prayer Booklet HERE.
