In the Diocese of Toledo, we encourage the faithful to intentionally pray for priests every day.

Praying for Priests as Individuals

Pray for Priests Calendar

The parents of priests create a calendar so the faithful can pray for a specific priest each day.

Daily Prayer

Dear Lord,
We pray that the Blessed Mother wrap her mantle around your priests and through her intercession strengthen them for their ministry. We pray that Mary will guide your priests to follow her own words, “Do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5). May your priests have the heart of St. Joseph, Mary’s most chaste spouse. May the Blessed Mother’s own pierced heart inspire them to embrace all who suffer at the foot of the cross. May your priests be holy, filled with the fire of your love seeking nothing but your greater glory and the salvation of souls. Amen.
Saint John Vianney, pray for us.

Praying for Priests as Parishes

Prayer for Priests Initiative

In September 2024, the Diocese of Toledo announced our Prayer for Priests initiative. We are partnering with The Foundation of Prayer for Priests.

The Foundation of Prayer for Priests is a private association of the faithful founded in 2013 with the encouragement of Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, then Prefect of Rome’s Dicastery for the Clergy. It exists to build up the Body of Christ in her Priests and to promote the universal call to holiness.

Parish Cenacles

Every parish is invited to create prayer groups (called Vianney Cenacles). Cenacles can run in two different formats: A Eucharistic Holy Hour or a Group that includes prayer, study, and discussion.

Join us for a Zoom event with Kathleen Beckman, the co-founder of the Foundation of Prayer for Priests (FPP), on Thursday, November 14, 2024 at 1:00 pm. Register here.

This meeting will include a witness from an active parish, a presentation by Kathleen about the FPP, instructions for setting up your parish group, and Q&A.

Additional Ways to Support Priests

Prayers

A Prayer for Priests
Gracious and loving God, we thank you for the gift of our priests. Through them, we experience your presence in the sacraments. Help our priests to be strong in their vocation. Set their souls on fire with love for your people. Grant them the wisdom, understanding, and strength they need to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Inspire them with the vision of your Kingdom. Give them the words they need to spread the Gospel. Allow them to experience joy in their ministry. Help them to become instruments of your divine grace. We ask this through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns as our Eternal Priest. Amen.

A Prayer for Priests
By St. Therese of Lisieux

O Jesus, eternal Priest,
keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,
where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands,
which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips,
daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,
sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and
shield them from the world's contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit and
may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here and in heaven their beautiful and
everlasting crown. Amen.

A Prayer for Priests
By John Cardinal O’Connor

O loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your sons who are close to you because of their priestly ordination and because of the power which they have received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs them so much. Be their comfort, be their joy, be their strength, and especially help them to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy.

Lord Jesus, we your people pray to You for our priests. You have given them to us for OUR needs. We pray for them in THEIR needs.

We know that You have made them priests in the likeness of your own priesthood. You have consecrated them, set them aside, anointed them, filled them with the Holy Spirit, appointed them to teach, to preach, to minister, to console, to forgive, and to feed us with Your Body and Blood.

Yet we know, too, that they are one with us and share our human weaknesses. We know too that they are tempted to sin and discouragement as are we, needing to be ministered to, as do we, to be consoled and forgiven, as do we. Indeed, we thank You for choosing them from among us, so that they understand us as we understand them, suffer with us and rejoice with us, worry with us and trust with us, share our beings, our lives, our faith.

We ask that You give them this day the gift You gave Your chosen ones on the way to Emmaus: Your presence in their hearts, Your holiness in their souls, Your joy in their spirits. And let them see You face to face in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread.

We pray to You, O Lord, through Mary the mother of all priests, for Your priests and for ours. Amen.

More ideas

• Write a kind letter to your pastor
• Celebrate in your parish the date of your pastor’s ordination
• Ask priests to share their stories about vocations
• Say a prayer every week at mass for priests
• Have a Eucharist adoration specifically for priests
• Send a note to parish staff to encourage recognition of priests
• Invite your parish priest into your home for dinner throughout the year
• Tell the story of the Cure of Ars
• Ask laity to tell how a priest have impacted their lives
• Learn more about priests: fact sheets in programs/ newsletters/ websites
• Hold days of recollections for the priest to go over what the Pope writes and releases
• Make a special effort to express gratitude for the gift of priests
• Ask children to write a note to their pastor