From 1983 until 2015 I was a pastor/missionary. I valued greatly when someone told me that he or she was praying for me. Even with those assurances, there were days when it seemed that I was all alone, that the spiritual burden was greater than I could bear. Because of that experience I sense a great responsibility to pray now for those in spiritual leadership over me.
If you feel spiritual attack or pushback in your daily walk with Christ as a disciple, as a father or mother, as a college or high school student, or in the workplace, imagine what your priest/pastor is experiencing in their godly role of leading you and me to Christ.
Every morning I pray the following prayer for my priest. I found the prayer in the United States Grace Force Prayer Book.
O Almighty Eternal God, look upon the face of Thy Christ, and for the love of Him who is the Eternal High Priest, have pity on Thy priests. Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings. Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them by the imposition of the bishop’s hands. Keep them close to Thee, lest the Enemy prevail against them, so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree unworthy of their sublime vocation.
O Jesus, I pray Thee for Thy faithful and fervent priests; for Thy unfaithful and tepid priests; for Thy priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Thy tempted priests; for Thy lonely and desolate priests; for Thy young priests; for Thy aged priests; for Thy sick priests; for Thy dying priests; for the souls of Thy priests in purgatory.
But above all I commend to Thee the priests dearest to me; the priest who baptized me; the priests who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose Masses I assisted, and who gave me Thy Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed me, or helped and encouraged me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way, particularly [Name(s)]. O Jesus, keep them all close to Thy Heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.
Imprimatur +Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of Madison, 6 September 2018
Caritas in Veritate 