CAPG's Blog 

Divine Savior, Sanctify Thy Priests!

"God in heaven and I on earth, we desire nothing more ardently than prayer and sacrifice for priests...

Let us beg God that He may give us holy priests! If we have this, all else will follow: but if this be wanting, all else will avail nothing."

It is something quite simple and easy, yet immeasurably great in its results. You should make it a point to offer the Saturday after the First Friday of each month to your Savior, through the hands of Mary, the great mediatrix of all graces, for the sanctification of all the priests and students for the priesthood throughout the whole world. For this purpose you should give the Saturday wholly and entirely to Him, that is to say, Holy Mass, Holy Communion, all prayers, labors, sacrifices, joys, and sorrows. Whatever you cannot do on this day (Holy Mass and Holy Communion) you ought to supply immediately on Sunday. So there is really nothing new for you to do. You merely offer up this Saturday ( or even every Saturday or some other day) for the sanctification of priests. It is not a case of any sodality or fraternity or anything like that. Like the First Friday in honor of the Sacred Heart, the Priest's Saturday seeks to become something religiously observed by all the Catholics of the world.

Concern about the holiness of priests is the concern of the Heart of the Divine Savior and of His Blessed Mother. Therefore, you should be sure to take part in this apostolate to the apostles.

Source: Priest's Saturday Pamphlet #2, Prayers and Devotions for Priest's Day. Salvatorian Fathers.

Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes

Be thou blessed, O most pure Virgin, who didst deign to appear in the grotto of Lourdes as many as eighteen times, resplendent with light, sweetness, and beauty, and to say to the humble and simple child who contemplated thee in ecstasy, " I am the Immaculate Conception!" be thou blessed for the extraordinary favors which thou dost unceasingly scatter around this place.

By thy maternal heart, O Mary, and by the glory which the holy Church has rendered thee, we conjure thee to pray for the Sovereign Pontiff and for Father [ name ] and to realize the hopes of peace which the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception excited in the breasts of the faithful. Amen.

St. Joseph's Manual ( Rev. James Fitton, 1877)

O Mother Immaculate, Patron of America, who, through little Bernadette, bade us pray and work for the conversion of the countless souls now perishing. I offer all the prayers, actions, and sufferings of this day and every day of my life for their conversion, and I beg of thee to bless my resolution to do what I can throughout my life to bring about their salvation.

St. Bernadette, Pray for Father Price.

Imprimatur: Most Rev. Vincent S. Waters, D.D. May 2 1949