Pope praises Vatican prayer project to encourage priests, vocations
By Carol Glatz (Catholic News Service)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has praised a Vatican initiative to encourage eucharistic adoration for the holiness of priests and recruit "spiritual mothers" to pray for priests and for vocations to the priesthood.
In an undated letter sent to the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy, which is promoting the initiative, the pope said he is "grateful for the thoughtful gesture" and for suggestions the congregation has put forward.
In the letter, posted on the congregation's Web site, the pope said he hoped "the love and devotion to the eucharistic Jesus and devotion to Mary ... may give new fervor" to the life and apostolate of priests.
The clergy congregation released to journalists April 22 a letter addressed to the world's priests from Cardinal Claudio Hummes, congregation prefect, and Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, congregation secretary. The letter details the intentions of the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests May 30, as well as some prayers priests have been invited to say.
The project, launched Dec. 8, aims to highlight the link between the Eucharist and the priesthood as well as Mary's special role as the mother of every priest.
Cardinal Hummes and Archbishop Piacenza had said that as part of a wider effort to address the challenges priests are facing today, they wanted to promote perpetual eucharistic adoration "for the reparation of faults and sanctification of priests."
That includes the spiritual reparation for the damage caused by the sexual abuse of children by priests and to uphold the dignity of the victims, the cardinal said in a Jan. 4 interview with the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
One of the prayers released in mid-April invokes God's support so that the priest's commitment to celibacy is "a joyful and happy affirmation and a total dedication of myself to others."
Another prayer calls on Jesus, "the most powerful doctor of souls," for healing, "so that I may not fall back into evil, that I may flee from every sin" and "preserve my chastity unstained."
A daily prayer asks sinning priests to show remorse and "weep bitterly over the evil we have done."
Catholics are asked to pray for priests, that they may speak God's words, be courageous in service and do good for all people.
The Vatican's clergy office emphasized the importance of prayer and eucharistic adoration in being able to live in "full configuration to Christ."
"We cannot live, we cannot look at the truth about ourselves without letting ourselves be looked at and generated by Christ in daily eucharistic adoration," said the letter.
The letter highlighted Mary's special role as the mother of every priest and said priests "cannot do without a spiritual motherhood for our priestly life."
It called on the support of all Catholics and encouraged married, single and consecrated women to become "spiritual mothers" and pray for priests and for vocations to the priesthood.
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops