8 hours ago
Maundy Thursday
“He Loved Them Unto the End”
April 2, 2026 (NH)
PRAYERS FOR PRIESTS
Keep them, I pray Thee, dearest Lord, keep them, for they are Thine –
Thy priests whose lives burn out before Thy consecrated shrine.
Keep them, for they are in the world, though from the world apart.
When earthly pleasures tempt, allure, Shelter them in Thy heart.
Keep them, and comfort them in hours of loneliness and pain.
When all their life of sacrifice for souls seems but in vain.
Keep them, and Oh, remember, Lord They have no one but Thee;
Yet they have only human hearts, with human frailty.
Keep them as spotless as the Host that daily they caress.
Their every thought and word and deed,
Deign, dearest Lord, to bless.
Amen.
O Almighty Eternal God, look upon the face of thy Christ, and for love of Him who is the eternal High Priest, have pity on Thy priests. Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings. Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them by the imposition of the Bishop’s hands. Keep them close to Thee, lest the enemy prevail against them, so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree unworthy of their sublime vocation.
O Jesus, I pray Thee for Thy faithful and fervent priests; for Thy unfaithful and tepid priests; for Thy priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Thy tempted priests; for Thy lonely and desolate priests; for Thy young priests; for Thy aged priests; for Thy sick priests; for Thy dying priests; for the souls of Thy priests in purgatory.
But above all I commend to Thee the priests dearest to me: the priest who baptized me; the priests who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Thy Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed me or helped me and encouraged me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way, particularly:
All priests throughout the world resisting Modernism and the destruction of the Catholic Faith.
O Jesus, keep them all close to Thy heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.
O Jesus, Eternal High Priest, keep Thy priests within the shelter of Thy
Sacred Heart where none may harm them.
Keep unstained their anointed hands which daily touch Thy Sacred Body.
Keep pure their lips, daily purpled by Thy Precious Blood.
Keep pure and unworldly their hearts, sealed with sublime mark of Thy
glorious priesthood.
May they grow in love and confidence in Thee, and protect them from
the contagion of the world.
With the power of changing bread and wine, grant them also the power
of changing hearts.
Bless their labours with abundant fruit and grant them at the last the
crown of eternal life.
Amen.