HANDBOOK OF PRAYERS By Charles Belmonte CONTENTS Introduction HOW TO BE A TRUE CATHOLIC BASIC PRAYERS PREPARATION FOR MASS THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE ORDER OF MASS (ENGLISH) ORDER OF MASS (LATIN) PRAYERS AFTER MASS Acts of Thanksgiving after the Mass (priest) Acts of Thanksgiving after the Mass (layman) COMMUNION OUTSIDE MASS GUIDE FOR A GOOD CONFESSION DEVOTIONS TO THE BLESSED TRINITY DEVOTIONS TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST DEVOTIONS TO THE HOLY SPIRIT DEVOTIONS TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY MAY DEVOTIONS NOVENA TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION DEVOTIONS TO ST. JOSEPH PRAYERS AT THE TIME OF DEATH BLESSINGS INTRODUCTION LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY The disciples knew Our Lord Jesus Christ very well in this detail: that he prayed often in their midst or alone. Moved by Our Lord’s dedication to prayer, they asked him once: “Lord, teach us to pray.” In answer, Our Lord gave them the model of all prayer: “When you pray, say: Our Father who art in heaven...” Buoyed by this confidence, we pray. We begin with the prayers we learned in childhood. They are very much a part of Christian tradition. Through our vocal prayers, we learn the life of Jesus Christ and we gain his confidence in talking to our Father God. Then our conversations with God become sincere and true, face to face, heart to heart. This is the way Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer taught and lived throughout his life, a life of prayer. “Let us begin to do the same with God; we can be quite sure he listens to us and answers us. Let us pay attention to him and open up our soul in humble conversation, telling him in confidence everything that is in our heart: our joys, sorrows, hopes, annoyances, successes, failures, even the most trivial happenings in our day. We will discover that our heavenly father is interested in everything about us.” “The year 2000 marks a kind of challenge. We must look at the immensity of good that has sprung from the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word and, at the same time, not lose sight of the mystery of sin, which is continually expanding. Saint Paul writes that ‘where sin increased’ (‘ubi abundavit peccatum’, ‘grace overflows all the more’ (‘superabundavit gratia’; cf. Rom 5:20). This profound truth presents a perennial challenge for prayer. It shows how necessary prayer is for the world and for the Church, because in the end it constitutes the easiest way of making God and His redeeming love present in the world. God entrusted to men their own salvation; He entrusted to them the Church and, in the Church, the redeeming work of Christ. God entrusted this to all, both to individuals and to humanity as a whole. He entrusted all to one and one to all. The prayer of the Church, and especially the prayer of the Pope, must constantly reflect this awareness.” Through vocal prayers, we begin this conversation with God. “Prayer is a search for God, but it is also a revelation of God. Through prayer God reveals Himself as Creator and Father, as Redeemer and Savior, as the Spirit who ‘scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God’ (1 Cor 2:10) and above all ‘the secrets of human hearts’ (cf. Ps 43[44]:22). Through prayer God reveals Himself above all as Mercy—that is, Love that goes out to those who are suffering, Love that sustains, uplifts, and invites us to trust. The victory of good in the world is united organically with this truth. A person who prays professes such a truth and in a certain sense makes God, who is merciful Love, present in the world.” Hence, this Handbook is a compilation of the prayers that will help us talk to God in a confident and intimate way. Most of these prayers are traditional and are thus grounded in the piety of the Communion of Saints. Some are fruit of the meditations of Saint Josemaría Escrivá from his book, The Way of the Cross, and from his various homilies that deal with devotion to St. Joseph and to Mary, the Mother of God. We entrust this Treasury of Prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary. May she, who needed only to embrace her Son to make her prayer heard, teach us to pray as she prays—with the utmost confidence not because of our own worth, merit or devotion, but solely because of the Love and Mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 1. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, New York: Knopf, 1994, p. 23-24. (=CTH) 2. Ibidem p.26. HOW TO BE A TRUE CATHOLIC UNIVERSAL CALL TO HOLINESS “All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity.”1 “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”2 God wants us to be holy. Each Christian must try to sanctify himself in his place within the Church of Christ. In particular, the laity “by their very vocation, seek the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations.”3 “Hence the laity, dedicated as they are to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit, are marvelously called and prepared so that even richer fruits of the Spirit may be produced in them. For all their works, prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accomplished in the Spirit—indeed even the hardships of life if patiently born—all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the celebration of the Eucharist these may most fittingly be offered to the Father along with the body of the Lord. And so, worshiping everywhere by their holy actions, the laity consecrate the world itself to God, everywhere offering worship by the holiness of their lives.”4 “[Lay Christians] live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel, they may work for the sanctification of the world from within, as a leaven.”5 This universal call to holiness “pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are so closely associated that these may be effected and grow according to Christ and may be to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer.”6 “Let us listen to Our Lord: ‘He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little thing is dishonest also in much.’ It is as if he were saying to us: ‘Fight continuously in the apparently unimportant things which are to my mind important; fulfill your duty punctually; smile at whoever needs cheering up even though there is sorrow in your soul; devote the necessary time to prayer, without haggling; go to the help of anyone who looks for you; practice justice and go beyond it with the grace of charity.’”7 In order to sanctify ourselves in the ordinary circumstances of our life, we need to grow in our spiritual life, especially through prayer, self-denial and work. Life of Prayer “We learn to pray at certain moments by hearing the Word of the Lord and sharing in his Paschal mystery, but his Spirit is offered us at all times, in the events of each day, to make prayer spring up from us.”8 “Prayer in the events of each day and each moment is one of the secrets of the kingdom revealed to ‘little children’, to the servants of Christ, to the poor of the Beatitudes. It is right and good to pray so that the coming of the kingdom of justice and peace may influence the march of history, but it is just as important to bring the help of prayer into humble, everyday situations; all forms of prayer can be the leaven to which the Lord compares the kingdom.”9 “But do not imagine that prayer is an action to be carried out and then forgotten. The just man ‘delights in the law of the Lord, and meditates on his law day and night. Through the night, I meditate on you’ and ‘my prayer comes to you like incense in the evening.’ Our whole day can be a time of prayer—from night to morning and from morning to night.”10 Life of Self-Denial “The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes.”11 “Without mortification there is no happiness on earth.”12 Life of Work “Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Hence work is a duty: ’If any one will not work, let him not eat.’ Work honors the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth and the one crucified on Calvary, man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work.