Long warm days.
The pace of life slows.
A time for picnics and rest in the shade.
Lord, help me to rest a while
in the cooling shade of Your presence.
Slow down my restless heart
and fill me with gentle compassion
for all Your people.
Amen.
Keep us, good Lord,
under the shadow of Your mercy,
in this time of uncertainty and distress.
Sustain and support the anxious and fearful,
and lift up all who are brought low;
that we may rejoice in Your comfort
knowing that nothing can separate us from
Your Love.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
O glorious Saint Martha,
I run to your protection and aid,
comfort me in my difficulties
and intercede for my family
with your intimate friend, our Savior,
that we may always hold God in our hearts
and be provided for in our necessities.
I ask you, Saint Martha,
by your intercession to help me
in overcoming all my difficulties
and to teach me to become great
in the Kingdom of Heaven
by becoming as humble as you
in this world.
Amen.
Dear God, please keep my family and loved ones safe.
Watch over us and protect us with Your love
and shower us with good health, blessings and happiness.
Remove any fear, worry, doubt or stress from our hearts.
Comfort those who are hurting today and make them well again.
Lord Jesus, may everything I do begin with You,
continue with Your help, and be done
under Your guidance.
May my sharing in the Mass free me from my sins,
and make me worthy of Your healing.
May I grow in Your Love and Your service,
and become a pleasing offering to You;
and with You to Your Father.
May the mystery I celebrate help me
to reach eternal life with you.
O holy guardian angels,
heavenly friends of my children,
full of confidence I turn to you.
Those whom the Lord has entrusted to me
he has also entrusted to your love and care.
Obtain for me by your intercession,
that animated with the same sentiment
which animates you towards my children,
I may do all things to bring them up for God and heaven.
O may I be such a father to them that I may
be worthy of your love and friendship.
Obtain this for me by your powerful intercession.
Amen.
The morning after Pentecost, as I opened the curtains of my bedroom window, the bright red flowers in the garden next door grabbed my attention. In some mysterious way, they seemed like tongues of fire. As I stood gazing, I asked myself why I hadn’t noticed them previously. Perhaps, it was
O glorious Apostle, Saint James,
who by reason of your fervent and generous heart
was chosen by Jesus to be witness of His glory
on Mount Tabor, and of His agony in Gethsemane;
you, whose very name is a symbol of warfare and victory:
obtain for us strength and consolation
in the unending warfare of this life, that,
having constantly and generously followed Jesus,
we may be victors in the strife and deserve to receive
the victor's crown in heaven.
Amen.
Lord, I wish to believe in You.
Lord, let my faith be full and unreserved,
and let it penetrate my thought,
my way of judging Divine things and human things.
Lord, let my faith be joyful and give peace
and gladness to my spirit, and dispose it
for prayer with God and conversation with men,
so that the inner bliss of its fortunate possession
may shine forth in sacred and secular conversation.
Lord, let my faith be humble and not presume
to be based on the experience of my thought and of my feeling;
O Jesus! Mirror of eternal splendor,
remember the sadness which You experienced,
when contemplating in the light of Your Divinity
the predestination of those who would be saved
by the merits of Your Sacred Passion,
You saw at the same time,
the great multitude of reprobates
who would be damned for their sins,
and You complained bitterly of those hopeless,
lost and unfortunate sinners.
Through this abyss of compassion and pity,
and especially through the goodness
which You displayed to the good thief
Missionary Society of St. Columban US