“O Eternal Father, may our earth be impregnated by that ocean of love gushing forth from the opened side of Your Jesus that it may bring forth holy priests, priests who like John, the Beloved Disciple, will gather up the Precious Blood in their chalices on the altars. Send us priests who will give You to souls with that plentitude of love which the Apostle John received as a pledge of tenderness at the foot of the Cross…
May your priests protect with jealous love Your Bride, the Church, just as St. John protected Mary, Your Mother, and took her into his own. Instructed by this tender Mother of Sorrows on Calvary, may these priests watch over Your children with the exquisite tenderness and care of a Mother. May they lead souls on to intimate union with You through Mary who, as the Gate of Heaven, is the sole dispenser of the treasures hidden in your Adorable Heart.
O Mary! Transfixed beneath the Cross by the sword which pierced the Heart of Your Divine Son…teach us how to please Jesus; let us run with you to His assistance when we hear His cry: ‘I thirst’…that cry which you heard at the foot of the Cross as He was expiring…Oh! Priests! Priests all on fire! True children of Mary who will give Jesus to souls, with the same tenderness and the same care with which you carried the little child of Bethlehem! In the Host, O Mother, your Jesus is once more little, like in the crèche! He does not have hands as delicate as yours to touch Him.
Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary! Give Him a generation of priests formed at your school, in the delicacies of your virginal love!”
