April 2024: Prayers and Reflections
Prayers and Reflections April 2024
The Pope’s Monthly Intention
For the Role of Women: We pray that the dignity and immense value of women be recognised in every culture, and for the end of discrimination that they experience in different parts of the world.
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The Annunciation of the Lord • 8 April
Mary’s ‘yes’ is the vessel through which God-among-us steps into our world and opens up to us as one of us. Our ‘yes’ today is not a claim to perfection or a statement of moral superiority any more than the days we can only bring ourselves to say, ‘no, I just can’t’ mark us out as deficient or failures. The openness of God’s love is unending, so that wherever we find ourselves we are welcomed and embraced. So whatever these strained circumstances and whatever insecurity they may cause, ‘the Lord is with you, do not be afraid’.
www.merton.ox.ac.uk
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Prayer for Vocations • Vocations Sunday 21 April
God our Father, send workers into your harvest.
May the Spirit we received in baptism
Touch the hearts of many
To offer themselves in priesthood, religious life
And other forms of service.
Give the parents and families of our diocese
The wisdom and courage to support young people
In searching for and following the call of God in their lives.
Through Christ our Risen Lord. Amen.
www.elphindiocese.ie
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St Anselm • 21 April
St Anselm, a bishop and Doctor of the Church, lived from 1033 to 1109. He taught theology at Bec and later served as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm has ties to Ireland: he referred to himself as the ‘Archbishop of Canterbury and primate of Great Britain and Ireland’ in a writing from 1101. He was never officially canonised but was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1720 by Pope Clement XI.
- ‘Come now, insignificant man, fly for a moment from your affairs, escape for a little while from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside now your weighty cares and leave your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a little to God and rest for a little in Him.’
- ‘God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.’
- ‘Teach me to seek You, and reveal Yourself to me as I seek, because I can neither seek You if You do not teach me how, nor find You unless You reveal Yourself.’
www.limerickdiocese.org
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Prayer of St Catherine of Siena • 29 April
Eternal God, eternal Trinity,
You have made the Blood of Christ so precious
through His sharing in Your Divine nature.
You are a mystery as deep as the sea;
the more I search, the more I find,
and the more I find, the more I search for You.
But I can never be satisfied;
what I receive will ever leave me desiring more.
When You fill my soul, I have an ever greater hunger,
and I grow more famished for Your light.
I desire above all to see You,
the true Light, as you really are. Amen.
www.knightsoftheholyeucharist.com
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St Louis Marie de Montfort • 28 April
‘If we do not risk anything for God we will never do anything great for Him.’
Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort is revered for his intense devotion to the Blessed Virgin and to praying the Rosary.
‘Take advantage of little sufferings even more than of great ones. God considers not so much what we suffer as how we suffer’.
‘Turn everything to profit as the grocer does in his shop’.
‘Mary is the fruitful Virgin, and in all the souls in which she comes to dwell she causes to flourish purity of heart and body, rightness of intention and abundance of good works. Do not imagine that Mary, the most fruitful of creatures who gave birth to a God, remains barren in a faithful soul. It will be she who makes the soul live incessantly for Jesus Christ, and will make Jesus live in the soul’.
www.bigccatholics.blogspot.com
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Prayer to St George to be shielded from enemies
Feast 23 April
Glorious Saint George, in the name of God, extend to me your shield and your powerful weapons, defending me with your strength and with your greatness, and that under you, my enemies remain humble and submissive to you.
So be it with the power of God, Jesus and the Divine Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen,