Based on the Eucharistic Meditations of St John Vianney,
Patron Saint of Parish Priests
Introduction
The Spiritual Law of Causality
“If the priest is a saint,
the people will be fervent.
If the priest is fervent,
the people will be pious.
If the priest is pious,
the people will at least be decent.
If the priest is only decent,
the people will be godless.
The spiritual generation is always one
degree less intense in its life than the one
who begets it in Christ.
We would not go so far as to accept this proposition, but we consider the words of St Alphonsus, Doctor of the Church:
‘The good morals and the salvation of the people depend on good pastors. If there is a good priest in charge of the parish, you will soon see devotion flourishing, people frequenting the Sacraments, and honoring the practice of mental prayer.
Hence the proverb: like pastor, like parish.
According to Ecclesiasticus (10:2)
Those who dwell in the state, take after their ruler’”
(Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O. from The Soul of the Apostolate)
The main purpose of this holy hour is to pray for our priests, but it also has the goal of inspiring us who pray it to increase our personal holiness, and to increase our love and devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Certainly, the intention of St John Vianney in his Eucharistic Meditations, upon which this holy hour is based, is to inspire us to holiness and love of the Eucharist. Holiness and love of the Eucharist will inspire us to love of neighbor and a zeal for the salvation of souls. St James (5:16) tells us the prayers of the just carry great weight with God.
The holier we become personally, the more weight our prayers for priests will have with God. In addition to prayer, sacrifice, the Sacraments, and reading of Sacred Scriptures, the two books mentioned, The Soul of the Apostolate and Eucharistic Meditations will greatly assist you in this effort toward holiness.
O SALUTARIS HOSTIA (If the Sacred Host is to be Exposed)
O salutaris Hostia,
Quae caeli pandis ostium:
Bella premunt hostilia,
Da robur, fer auxilium.
Uni trinoque Domino
Sit sempiterna gloria,
Qui vitam sine termino
Nobis donet in patria.
Amen. O saving Victim, opening wide
The gates of heaven to all below,
Our foes press on from every side;
Thine aid supply, thy strength bestow.
All praise and thanks to thee ascend
Forevermore, blest One in Three
O grant us life that shall not end
In our true native land with thee
Amen
OPENING
Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lord and our God! You gave St John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, a great love and passion for the Eucharist. Your Spouse, the Holy Catholic Church has declared the Curé of Ars the Patron Saint of Parish Priests.
As we use St John’s meditations to pray for the past, present, and future priests of our Diocese, may our hearts be inflamed with Your Love Oh Lord, and like the two disciples of Emmaus, as we journey with You this hour to pray for our priests, may our eyes be opened to Your Holy Will. Inspire our priests with the same love and passion as St John Vianney had for You in the Eucharist, that they may then inspire all those they come in contact with, to also have this love and passion for You.
Lord Jesus, having taken bread in the presence of your Apostles, you said to them: “This is bread; I am going to change it into my Body: this is wine; I am going to change it into my Blood. This Body is truly the Body which shall be crucified, and this Blood is the very Blood that shall be shed for the remission of sins; and each time you pronounce these same words,” you said again to your Apostles, “you will work the same miracle, and you will communicate this power one to another to the end of the world.”
You established the Eucharist that first Holy Thursday, and at the same time instituted the Holy Priesthood. We adore you Oh Lord, and we pray for the priests you have commissioned.
You teach us Lord, that whatever we ask the Father in Your name He will give us.
Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus your Son, give us holy priests and inspire us all to love of Your Son in the Eucharist. Procure for us, and for our priests, the grace of a living faith in Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist.
1st Quarter Hour - ADORATION
I will praise the Lord with all my heart,
in the assembled congregation of the upright
(Ps. 111[110]:1).
O Eucharistic Lord Jesus, we believe that you are in this sacrament as truly as you were for nine months in Mary’s womb, as really as you were on the Cross.
This Sacrament being a mystery of faith, we must believe firmly that you Lord, are really present in the Holy Eucharist, and that you are living and glorious there as in heaven. Formerly, before giving Holy Communion, the priest, holding the Holy Eucharist in his hands, used to say aloud: “Believe, my brethren, that the adorable Body and precious Blood of Jesus Christ is truly in this Sacrament.” Then all the faithful replied: “Yes, we believe it.”
Creation and the government of the universe are great works which show your power, your wisdom, and your mercy; but nowhere do they shine as in the Eucharist, memorial of the wonders that you have wrought on earth. We raise our voices, our hearts, and minds to your praise. Give us and our priests the love and reverence of the Angelic Host who adore you with holy trembling.
We speak of the adorable Sacrament of the Eucharist. Here is the marvel of your love for us, Lord. In the Eucharistic your power, your grace, and your goodness shine in a manner altogether extraordinary. Here you are the bread come down from heaven, the bread of angels, which is given us as food of our souls; here you are the bread of strengthening which comforts and sweetens our sorrows, the traveler’s bread, the key which opens heaven to us. “He that receives me,” you said, “shall have eternal life.”’
Is it not, indeed exceeding love which makes you Lord Jesus perpetuate your Presence among your disciples? You give us an inestimable gift; you secure for us an all-powerful remedy against the world’s tribulations; you open to us a source of singular grace.
By the Eucharist you feed your children, not with ordinary food, nor with the manna by which the Israelites were fed in the wilderness, but with your sacred Body and your precious Blood.
The Eucharist was the center of all St John Vianney’s thoughts and affections. The Eucharist was for him the adored Master who, before all others, had a right to his homage.
Nothing can give an idea of the St John Vianney’s devotion to the Holy Eucharist. It was his favorite subject, and he was perpetually returning to it in his instructions. Then his heart would dissolve in gratitude and love; tears choked his voice.
Nothing can be compared to the Eucharist. By Holy Orders, you communicate to the priest all his powers to convey this Sacrament. Grant Oh Lord that all our priests imitate St John Vianney’s love for the Eucharist!
In receiving Jesus Christ our spirit is strengthened; we are more steadfast in our trials; our intentions are purer in all we do, and our love is more and more enkindled. The thought that we possess Jesus Christ in our hearts, and the happiness we experience in that blessed moment, seem so to unite and bind us to God that our heart can think of and desire nothing but God.
What is it that our Lord does in the Sacrament of his love? He has assumed his kind Heart that he may love us, and there flows from that heart a stream of tenderness and mercy to drown the sins of the world. O Heart of Jesus! Heart of Love! Flower of Love!
What should we love, if not the Heart of Jesus? There is nothing but love in that heart. How, then, can we help loving what is so love-worthy? Oh Lord Jesus, grant that sustained by the Bread of Life, we and our priests may serve God joyously.
Oh Lord, if a little yeast leavens the whole of a large lump of dough, if a spark suffices to set a house on fire, if one grain cast into the earth makes it fertile and produces others from it, how truly ought we to trust that your blessed Body, entering into ours, in the fullness of time will raise it from corruption, kindle it with glory, and reproduce it immortal, agile, subtle, resplendent, and endowed with all the glorious qualities that can be hoped for.
2nd Quarter Hour - THANKSGIVING
St John Vianney was especially eloquent when he preached on the Holy Eucharist, and represented it as the true food of our souls, our heavenly food, which alone can satisfy the hunger of our souls.
Knowing that the time had come to return to your Father, you did not leave us alone on the earth among so many enemies who all seek to destroy us. You bless us by your Real Presence in this great Sacrament and you pledge to remain, day and night, as our Consoler and Friend. Happier are we than those who lived during his mortal life, when he was only in one place. We find him today in every corner of the world; and this happiness is promised to us till the end of time
Every created being must be fed in order to live; but our souls also must be fed. The food of our souls is the body and blood of God. O glorious food! The soul can feed only on God; only God can suffice it; only God can fill it; only God can satiate its hunger.
God is absolutely necessary to it.
Our Lord has said, “My flesh is true food. The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” O Jesus, thank you for this living bread which strengthens, beautifies, enkindles, and satiates our souls. Thank you for our priests who provide for us.
The soul in its turn dwells in the divinity of Christ as in an immortal and life-giving food, or rather in the heart of life itself; and this divine life fills, penetrates, and influences us by habitual grace, holy inspirations, and good impulses, the object of them all being to transform us into Christ.
Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.
It is a union so close that Christ himself said to us: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”
On that first Holy Thursday, while they are preparing to shed your Blood, Oh Jesus Christ, you willed that this same Blood shall be to us a draught of immortality for the consolation and happiness of our souls. Yes, we may say that you loved us even to exhausting the riches of your love.
Let us listen, then, after each of you Communions, to our Lord, present in our souls; talk to him; ask the blessed Virgin to thank him. Thanksgiving is our duty.
After Mass St John Vianney began his thanksgiving, which lasted till midday. Have you seen the statue of St. John Vianney on his knees? His body leans far forward, as though attracted by something invisible to all but him; his clasped hands express the intensity of his feelings; his burning gaze, shining with joy, is fixed on the tabernacle; his smile is that of the Bride who beholds the Divine Beloved and delights in the possession of him: it is the attitude of ecstatic adoration.
Many Christians cross the seas to visit the holy places where the mystery of our redemption took place. But we already have you, Oh Lord Jesus Christ here in our midst, body, blood, soul and divinity in our local churches as worthy of reverence as the holy places!
We thank you, Lord God, and ask you for us and our priests, the grace always to hunger after this heavenly food.
3rd Quarter Hour - PETITION
There is nothing so great as the Eucharist! How much, then, we ought to desire it!
St. Catherine of Genoa so hungered for this heavenly bread that she could not see it in the priest’s hands without feeling as though she were dying of love, so great was her desire to possess it, and she would cry, “My God, come to me, I can bear it no longer! My God, come, if it please you, into my inmost heart; no, my God, I can bear it no longer. You are my whole joy, my whole happiness, and the only food of my soul.”
Lord Jesus, grant us and our priests a great desire for the Eucharist!
Venial sin can be the reason why we hardly profit from Holy Communion. We have a horror of mortal sins which bring death to our souls; but as for our venial sins, we are not troubled. So great is the purity of Jesus Christ that the least venial sin prevents him from uniting himself to us as entirely as he would. If we understood the value of Holy Communion, we should avoid the slightest faults.
Lord Jesus, keep our souls, and the souls of our priests always pure in God’s sight.
Give us Oh Lord, and our priests, the graces which we need: humility, patience, purity. Help us to unite ourselves to you, Oh Lord Jesus Christ, that you may change us into other Christs. By frequent Communion and Adoration, give our thoughts, our desires, our actions, and all our undertakings the intentions you desire for us. That we love God, that we are touched by your neighbor’s troubles, spiritual and temporal, and that we will not think for a moment of attaching ourselves to earth; henceforth in heart and mind help us to live only for heaven.
We ask you, Heavenly Father to give us these graces we desire for yourself and our priests. We ask in your Son’s name, Jesus Christ and by and the merits of his holy death and Passion, that you will be able to refuse us nothing. Give us holy priests! Give our priests all the graces they need!
What does Jesus Christ do in the Eucharist? As our Savior, he offers himself each day for us to his Father’s justice. If we are in difficulties and sorrows, he will comfort and relieve us. If we are sick, he will either cure us or give us strength to suffer so as to merit heaven. If the devil, the world, and the flesh are making war upon us, he will give us weapons with which to fight, to resist, and to win the victory. If we are poor, he will enrich us with all sorts of riches for time and for eternity. Let us open the door of his sacred and adorable Heart and be wrapped about for an instant by the flames of his love, and we shall see what a God who loves us can do.
If we really loved the good God, we should make it our joy and happiness to come and spend time in his Presence to adore him and ask him for the grace of forgiveness; and we should regard those moments as the happiest in our lives.
Oh, how sweet and consoling are moments spent with the God of goodness! When in sorrow let us cast ourselves at his feet and we will be consoled. When we are despised by the world, let us come here and you will find a good friend whose faithfulness will never fail us. When tempted, it is here that we will find strong and terrible weapons to vanquish our enemies. When in fear of just punishment which has made the greatest saints tremble, let us profit by the time in which our God is the God of mercies, and while it is so easy to win pardon from him. When we are oppressed, here we will find a God infinitely rich, who will tell us that his wealth is ours, not in this world, but in the next. “It is there that I am preparing for you infinite riches; go, despise the riches that perish, and you will have those that never decay.” Ah, how good it is to enjoy the pure embraces of the Savior! You have never tasted them! If you had had that happiness, you could not leave them
O St John Vianney, pray for us and our priests, and obtain for us your ardent desires for Holy Communion, your faith, and your intentions, and your dispositions.
We ask you Lord, with tears and sorrow for the pardon of our sins and pardon for the sins of our priests. We beg you for the precious gift of perseverance. We desire to taste the joy of the saints. Help us to realize that here in Adoration, we will know the happy beginnings of this joy. W make these same petitions for our priests.
4th Quarter Hour - ATONEMENT
St John Vianney, pray for our priests and obtain for us grace to make amends, by a generous love, for the outrages that Jesus receives in the Blessed Sacrament.
Angels love you Oh Lord, with a pure and perfect love but in the Eucharist the unbelievers pierce you again with nails, and bad Christians receive you unworthily, some without contrition, others without desire of amendment, others, perhaps, with crime in their hearts. It attacks your very Person, Oh Jesus, instead of scorning only your commandments, like other mortal sins. Whoever receives Communion unworthily crucifies Jesus Christ in his heart.
It is his will that his Body, his Soul, and his Divinity may be found in all places of the world, and that with him we may find every happiness. He wills to be our life at his own expense, to be our adoration, our thanksgiving, our prayer, and our propitiation.
St John Vianney, pray for our priests and preserve us from the sin of unworthy Communion.
Communion does indeed lavish upon us actual grace to love our brothers generously and sincerely. Do not harbor, then, ill-will, spite, or hatred against your neighbor in your heart, as that that would directly counteract the action of Jesus within you. But that is not enough. We beg for the conversion of sinners, fervor for the lukewarm, health for the sick, and deliverance for the dead.
St John Vianney, pray for us and our priests, that each of our Communions may unite us so closely to Jesus Christ that nothing may be able to separate us from him: neither life nor death, neither the world, the flesh, nor the devil.
St John Vianney also contended with our Lord in generosity. Every morning he received the Body and Blood of Christ and then sacrificed his whole self in union with the divine Savior. He prayed and fasted fervently for the conversion of his parishioners. Let us do likewise for our priests.
St John Vianney, pray for us and our priests that we may always approach the venerable Sacrament of our altars with a holy reverence and religious modesty, and that we may avoid all negligence towards the Eucharist, and share your fervor.
For the most part, we seem without reverence in our churches. We seem to be without the love of God, without even knowing what we have come there to do. Some let a thousand earthly things occupy their minds and hearts; to others, it is wearying and distasteful to be there; there are others who scarcely kneel down while God sheds his precious Blood for their pardon; others, finally, will scarcely let the priest come down from the Altar before they run away.
My God, how little your children love you! In fact, what spirit is there of levity and dissipation which is not to be seen in church? Many are distracted and hardly anyone is occupied with what they ought to be doing.
It is faith that is wanting as our Lord does not show himself in all his majesty in the most holy Sacrament. We are here without reverence while you Lord are in our midst! In your Presence Lord, we ask your then to open the eyes of our hearts. We say to you, like the blind man of Jericho, Lord, please let us see!
St John Vianney, pray for us and our priests that we may always feel a profound reverence in the presence of the divine Dweller in our tabernacles.
How many Christians only condescend to come for a few short moments, if at all, to visit their Savior who burns with desire to see them near him and load them with blessings. What a difference between the first Christians and ourselves! They passed whole days and nights in the churches, singing the praises of the Lord or weeping over their sins; but things are not the same today. Jesus is forsaken, abandoned by us in the Sacrament of his love.
“Go, my friend.” Fr. Courbon had said, in appointing Fr. Vianney to Ars; “There is not much love of God in that parish; you will put it there.” The love of God was, in fact, extinguished there in many souls; the passion for dancing and the bars, and the profanation of the holy day of Sunday had stifled it. Who will ever know what the heart of the holy priest had to suffer from such a state of things? How much this must have filled him with sadness! That sorrow, however, never went as far as faint-heartedness. Fully recognizing the difficulty of the task, St John Vianney believed that he would succeed by his prayers, sighs, and groanings before our Lord. From that time he resolved to consecrate his days and nights to entreating the divine mercy to act itself on the hearts of his parishioners, and he chose the church for his dwelling. He might be seen prostrate for long hours on the pavement of the choir, utterly motionless. There he recited a great part of his office, without any support whatsoever; his chest, wasted with fasting, heaved with long sighs; and he paused often, and gazed at the tabernacle with eyes wherein such vivid joy was portrayed, that one might have believed he saw our Lord, and which made his parishioners say: “Our Curé is a saint.”
We pray Oh Jesus Eucharistic, that we may pray and sacrifice for our priests in the manner St John Vianney prayed and sacrificed for his parishioners and that our priests may follow the example of the the Curé of Ars. Amen
LITANY OF PATRON SAINTS in the DIOCESE of ORANGE
Lord, have mercy on our priests. Lord, have mercy on our priests.
Christ, have mercy on our priests. Christ, have mercy on our priests.
Lord, have mercy on our priests. Lord, have mercy on our priests.
Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on our priests.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on our priests.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on our priests.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on our priests.
Christ the King have mercy on our priests.
Christ our Savior have mercy on our priests
Jesus, Most Blessed Sacrament have mercy on our priests
Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on our priests
Holy Family pray for our priests
Our Lady of Peace pray for our priests
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel pray for our priests
Our Lady Queen of Angels pray for our priests
La Purisima pray for our priests
Our Lady of Fatima pray for our priests
Immaculate Heart of Mary pray for our priests
Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for our priests
Our Lady of La Vang pray for our priests
Our Lady of the Pillar pray for our priests
St. Joseph pray for our priests
St John Paul II pray for our priests
St John Vianney pray for out priests
St. Anthony Claret pray for our priests
St. Boniface pray for our priests
St. Justin Martyr pray for our priests
St. Thomas pray for our priests
San Antonio de Padua pray for our priests
St. Angela Merici pray for our priests
St. Pius V pray for our priests
St. Joachim pray for our priests
St. John the Baptist pray for our priests
St. Irenaeus pray for our priests
St. Edward the Confessor pray for our priests
St. Juliana Falconieri pray for our priests
St. Mary pray for our priests
St. Philip Benizi pray for our priests
St. Columban pray for our priests
St. Bonaventure pray for our priests
St. Vincent de Paul pray for our priests
Sts. Simon and Jude pray for our priests
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton pray for our priests
St. John Neumann pray for our priests
St. Thomas More pray for our priests
St. Catherine of Siena pray for our priests
St. Nicholas pray for our priests
St. Timothy pray for our priests
Santiago de Compostela pray for our priests
St. Hedwig pray for our priests
St. Kilian pray for our priests
St. Norbert pray for our priests
San Francisco Solano pray for our priests
San Juan Capistrano pray for our priests
St. Barbara pray for our priests
St. Anne pray for our priests
St. Polycarp pray for our priests
St. Cecilia pray for our priests
Korean Martyrs pray for our priests
Vietnamese Martyrs pray for our priests
Santa Clara de Asis pray for our priests
St. Martin de Porres pray for our priests
Lamb of God,
who takes away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord!
Lamb of God,
who takes away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord!
Lamb of God,
who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us
Let us pray:
Oh God who was pleased to establish the Diocese of Orange in California, grant that through your mercy under the titles of Churches in the diocese dedicated to you, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Churches dedicated to her, and through the intercession of the Saints who have Churches dedicated to them, the departed priests of our diocese may be freed from Purgatory, that our current priests will be given every grace they need to bring souls to heaven, and that those men you call to the priesthood in the future may heed the call of their vocations, through Christ our Lord. Amen
BENEDICTION (if the Host is to be reposed)
Blessed be God.
Blessed be his holy name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man.
Blessed be the name of Jesus.
Blessed be his most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.
May the heart of Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time. Amen
Holy God We Praise Thy Name
Holy God, we praise thy name;
Lord of all, we bow before thee;
all on earth thy scepter claim;
all in heaven above adore thee.
Infinite thy vast domain;
everlasting is thy reign.
Infinite thy vast domain;
everlasting is thy reign.
Based on the book:
Eucharistic Meditations: Extracts from the Writings and Instructions of St. John Vianney
By Abbe G, Convert
(Templegate Publisher 1962)
Soul of the Apostolate
By Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard
Both books are available at:
https://www.catholicfreeshipping.com
St. John Vianney (1876-1859), is commonly referred to as the Curé (Parish Priest) of Ars, for the little town of Ars, France where he was a priest. He became famous for his holiness such that 300 people a day would come to him for Confessions and spiritual direction. He spent well over 12 hours a day hearing Confessions. He was canonized in 1925 and declared “Patron of Parish Priests” by Pope Pius XI.
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