O loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your sons who are close to you because of their priestly ordination and because of the power which they have received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs them so much. Be their comfort, be their joy, be their strength, and especially help them to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy.
Lord Jesus, we your people pray to You for our priests. You have given them to us for OUR needs. We pray for them in THEIR needs.
We know that You have made them priests in the likeness of your own priesthood. You have consecrated them, set them aside, anointed them, filled them with the Holy Spirit, appointed them to teach, to preach, to minister, to console, to forgive, and to feed us with Your Body and Blood.
Yet we know, too, that they are one with us and share our human weaknesses. We know too that they are tempted to sin and discouragement as are we, needing to be ministered to, as do we, to be consoled and forgiven, as do we. Indeed, we thank You for choosing them from among us, so that they understand us as we understand them, suffer with us and rejoice with us, worry with us and trust with us, share our beings, our lives, our faith.
We ask that You give them this day the gift You gave Your chosen ones on the way to Emmaus:
Your presence in their hearts, Your holiness in their souls, Your joy in their spirits. And let them see You face to face in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread.
We pray to You, O Lord, through Mary the mother of all priests, for Your priests and for ours.
Amen.
"Oh, Fathers, what a great thing a good priest is... What conversions can he not procure! Look at Monsieur Bourdoise, that excellent priest, what a lot of things he does and can do! On priests depends the happiness of Christianity, since the good parishioners, when they see a good ecclesiastic, a charitable pastor, they venerate him and listen to his voice, trying to imitate him. How much we must try to do so that all may be good, since this is our mission, and the priesthood is such an elevated thing
But, my Savior, if a good priest can do great good, what harm is done by a bad priest! And how much it costs to put him on the right path!
My Savior, how poor missionaries must give themselves to You in order to contribute to the formation of good priests, since it is the most difficult work, the most elevated, the most important for the salvation of souls and the progress of Christianity!"
St. Vincent de Paul (XI, 702-703).
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II FOR THE XXXV WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS (1998)
The celebration of this Day is an auspicious occasion for announcing that the Holy Spirit of God writes in the heart and life of every baptised person a project of love and grace, which is the only way to give full meaning to existence, opening the way to the freedom of the children of God and enabling the offering of one's personal and irreplaceable contribution to the progress of humanity on the path of justice and truth. The Spirit does not only help to place oneself sincerely before the great questions of the heart - Where do I come from? Where am I going? Who am I? What is the purpose of life? How should I spend my time? - but opens up the prospect of courageous responses. The discovery that each man and woman has his own place in God's heart and in the history of humanity constitutes the point of departure for a new culture of vocations.