Thursday, April 25, 2013

Prayer for the intercession of Frank Parater

A prayer asking for the intercession of Frank Parater can be found below.  I have also pasted a link to the diocesan website about this Servant of God.  

Thanking you in advance for your prayers,
Melissa

Loving Father, Your servant, Frank Parater, sought perfection as a student, scout, and seminarian.  He offered himself to You completely through the Sacred Heart of Your beloved Son, Jesus. Through the intercession of Frank Parater, may young  people answer Your call to follow Jesus as priests and religious.  Grant the favors I seek, so that Your Church may recognize his holiness and proclaim him Blessed.   Grant this through Christ our Lord.  Amen  

http://www.arlingtondiocese.org/vocations/voc_parater.php

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Prayer to Our Lady by St Maximillian Kolbe

Click on prayer to "zoom in"


Allow me to praise You, O most holy Virgin, with my personal commitment and sacrifice.

Allow me to live, work, suffer, be consumed and die for You, just for You.

Allow me to bring the whole world to you.

Allow me to contribute to Your ever greater exaltation, to Your greatest possible exaltation.

Allow me to give You such glory that no one else has ever given You up to now.

Allow others to surpass me in zeal for Your exaltation, and me to surpass them, so that by means of such noble rivalry Your glory may increase ever more profoundly, ever more rapidly, ever more intensely as He Who has exalted You so indescribably above all other beings Himself desires.

In You alone has God been adored beyond compare, more than in all His saints.

For You God has created the world. For You God has also called me to existence. For what reason have I merited this fortune?

Oh, allow me to praise You, O most holy Virgin!

Director's Message


I have been thinking of our unique position as children of God and what that union entails for us as His daughters.  We are blessed with sanctifying grace, given access to the Sacraments, and are called to unite ourselves more fully with the sufferings of Christ.   As I mentioned at Easter, I am inclined to think of my day as a love letter to Our Lord.  As I look back on my Lent (and my life), I see so much failure: not keeping my sacrifices, realizing how attached I am to my own will, etc. But I also have great hope.  Christ looks on each one of us with His eyes of love, and literally begs us to accept His forgiveness and peace.  He desires to take all of our failures, disappointments, and hurts, and purify them in the furnace of His love so they may be presented to the Father as a sacrifice that is "acceptable and pleasing".  His love does not fail.  

My "love letter" is a renewal of my promise to seek the "pleasing of Him in all things".  To offer my tattered, yet hope-filled, heart to Him to be loved, and to love Him in return.  I desire each time things do not go my way today (and every day), to place these pricks upon my heart as a sacrifice of love on one of His five wounds, begging the grace in the moment to do as He wills, or as will too often happen, asking Him to perfect my actions where I fall short.  

In each of these moments my heart will be united to yours, knowing that through our united prayers and God's grace, our struggles will indeed be loved and perfected by Christ.