The Year for Priests - 40 Hours Devotion . . .

'The priest is not a priest for himself; he is not for himself, he is for you.' - St John Vianney.

The Year for Priests closes on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, 11th June 2010. Here at St Ann's, we have decided to celebrate the Year for Priests with 40 Hours Devotion which begins this evening immediately after Mass at 6.30 pm.

I am delighted to provide this opportunity for people to come along and pray for our priests. Adoration will continue throughout the night tonight and tomorrow night. Our devotion will close with Benediction at 9am on Thursday 6th May. Mass will follow at 9.30am.

All our welcome. Do please call in and join us in prayer for our priests if you can.

Prayer for Priests - St Therese of Lisieux

O Jesus

I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;

for your unfaithful and tepid priests;

for your priests labouring at home

or abroad in distant mission fields;

for your tempted priests;
for your lonely and desolate priests;
for your young;
for your dying priests;
for the souls of your priests in Purgatory.
But above all, I recommend to you
the priests dearest to me:
the priest who baptised me;
the priests who absolved me from my sins;
the priests at whose Masses I assisted
and who gave me Your Body and Blood
in Holy Communion;
the priests who taught and instructed me;
all the priests to whom I am indebted
in any other way.

O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,
and bless them abundantly
in time and in eternity.

Amen.

A Saint Joseph Prayer Book . . .

Family Publications have sent me 'A Saint Joseph Prayer Book' to review.

This beautifully illustrated prayer book has been produced to honour St Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church and foster-father of Jesus.

The book contains sacred texts together with prayers old and new which increase our devotion and nourish our spiritual lives. There are also extracts from St Francis de Sales, St Therese of Lisieux and others; there are quotes from Pope John XXIII and Pope Benedict XVI.

I recommend this book for private devotion or in family or school settings.

You may buy this prayer book from Family Publications. Price £4.50

Third talk by the Friars - Prayer . . .

I was delighted that we had a very good turnout for our third and final talk from the Friars of the Renewal this evening. The parish hall was almost full with parents from our First Holy Communion group and other parishioners. Once again I was very pleased to see many of the young people from our Confirmation programme.

Fr Raphaël gave an excellent talk on 'Prayer'.

He spoke about Judaeo-Christian prayer and quoted examples from the Gospels of Jesus' own prayer to his Father; mentioning the way that we look back in memory when we pray in thanksgiving and also look forward in supplication in our prayers for the future.

In the second half of his talk, Fr Raphaël spoke at some length about five methods of prayer that we might use ourselves:

Praying the Rosary

Lectio Divina

The Jesus Prayer

Silent Meditation

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

One of the questions at the end of the evening referred to the distractions that beset us all at some time or another when we are trying to prayer.

Fr Raphaël reminded us that even the some of the great saints like St Thérèse of Lisieux were plagued by distractions and suggested that we try and turn those distractions into prayer.

Although this was the last talk in the series, we look forward to welcoming the Friars back to St Ann's some time next year when we hope they will visit us again.

Year for Priests . . .

At a recent meeting of our Deanery clergy and religious, various resources were distributed for use in our parishes regarding The Year for Priests, and Vocations.

I was very impressed with the material produced by our Diocesan Vocations Director, Fr Paul Turner, and his team at the Vocations Office. They also have an excellent Diocesan Vocations Website. Do have a look when you have a spare moment.

Prayer cards are now available for parishioners containing two beautiful prayers for priests. Here is a Prayer for Priests from St Thérèse of Lisieux:

O Jesus

I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;

for your unfaithful and tepid priests;

for your priests labouring at home or

abroad in distant mission fields.

For your tempted priests;

for your lonely and desolate priests;

For your young priests;

for your dying priests;

for the souls of your priests in Purgatory.

But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:

The priest who baptised me;

the priests who absolved me from my sins;

the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me

Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;

the priests who taught and instructed me;

all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way.

O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,

and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.

Amen

Please remember in your in prayers also all those in formation at St John's Seminary at this time.

Our Lady, Queen of Priests, pray for us.

Aylesford and the Relics of St Thérèse . .

What a wonderful day we had at Aylesford!


About 40 parishioners travelled by coach to The Friars at Aylesford. It's good to have these parish outings from time to time and it was lovely today to be able to celebrate Cathy's 80th birthday - We hope she had an enjoyable day.

It was also good to see many children and young people from the local schools who were a credit to their schools - and their families.

We had plenty of time to eat our lunch, explore the Friary, take part in the service of welcome and, the main purpose of our visit, to venerate the relics of St Thérèse.

People queued patiently to venerate the relics after the service of welcome, even when it began to rain.

These are just a few photos but you can see a lot more in this slideshow:

It was a bit chilly but I think all were happy to put up with the cool weather and were warmed by the experience - after all it's not every day we get the opportunity to welcome the relics of a saint to these shores.

St Thérèse . . .

With being away, I have missed the opportunity to post about many important feast days recently (including my own namesake St Michael, on Tuesday!)

However, I couldn't let today end without a brief reference to St Teresa of the Child Jesus, or St Thérèse of Lisieux as she is perhaps better known.

Here is a short extract from the excellent website of the Society of the Little Flower

"My mission - to make God loved - will begin after my death," she said. "I will spend my heaven doing good on earth. I will let fall a shower of roses." Roses have been described and experienced as Saint Therese's signature. Countless millions have been touched by her intercession and imitate her "little way." She has been acclaimed "the greatest saint of modern times." In 1997, Pope John Paul II declared St. Therese a Doctor of the Church - the only Doctor of his pontificate - in tribute to the powerful way her spirituality has influenced people all over the world.

I'm very much looking forward to our visit to Aylesford on Friday to venerate the relics of St Thérèse as I'm sure many others are. Meanwhile . . .

St Thérèse, pray for us.

A Thérèse of Lisieux Prayer Book

I've just received another delightful book from Family Publications. It is very readable with lovely black and white pictures, some beautiful prayers and litanies and text from St Thérèse's own manuscripts.

Very apt at this present time as Pope Benedict XVI has approved the beatification of Louis and Marie Zelie Guerin Martin, parents of St Thérèse. The couple will be beatified on 19th October, World Mission Sunday, during a Mass in the Basilica of St Thérèse in Lisieux, France. More information here.

By coincidence, I also received in the post today a letter giving details of the visit of Relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux to England and Wales in 2009. Looking at the itinerary, the nearest places to visit from Banstead would be Portsmouth Cathedral on 16th/17th September; Aylesford on 9th - 11th October and Westminster Cathedral on 12th- 15th October. In general the relics will arrive in the afternoon and leave in the morning. Further details may be found on this website.