Year of Faith Prayerbook
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October 2012-November 2013
Edited by Barry R. Pearlman
All booklets are published thanks to the generous support of the members of the Catholic Truth Society
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY publishers to the holy see
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Contents
A Gift of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Holy Father’s Prayer for the Year of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Prayers to the Most Holy Trinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 For Faith in the Father . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 For Faith in the Son . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 For Faith in the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Blessed Virgin Mary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Holy Rosary for the Year of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 The Joyful Mysteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 The Luminous Mysteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 The Sorrowful Mysteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 The Glorious Mysteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The Hail Holy Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
The Communion of Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 St Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sts Peter and Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our Patron Saint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Angels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our Guardian Angel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
36 36 37 37 38
The Church and the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 For the Pope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 For Priests and Religious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 For the Deposit of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 For the Unity of Christians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
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3 For the Spread of the Gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For the Conversion of Our Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Religious Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For the Sanctity of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For the Sick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For the Faithful Departed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
40 41 42 43 44 44 45 45
Personal Petitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 For Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Charity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Humility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Patience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For Final Perseverance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
47 47 48 48 49 49 50
Adoration and Devotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Before the Blessed Sacrament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 The Divine Praises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Litany to the Holy Name of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
A Novena in Thanks for Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
î Ž All rights reserved. First published 2012 by The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society, 40-46 Harleyford Road London SE11 5AY Tel: 020 7640 0042 Fax: 020 7640 0046. Copyright Š 2012 The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society. ISBN: 978 1 86082 818 8
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A Gift of Faith
It is all that is good, everything that is perfect, which is given us from above; it comes down from the Father of all light; with him there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change.1 God’s grace is at the very beginning of faith in Christ: “because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit.”2 This grace is freely created by God, and informs our faculties, effecting faith within our souls. It endows our intellects with understanding and intuition, by various means - such as the spoken word, the majesty of creation, the heroic virtue of the saints, or the intimations of the heart - which inspire the soul to believe in Christ. “We can contemplate God not only outside us and within us but also above us: outside through his vestiges, within through his image, and above through the light which shines upon our minds, which is the light of Eternal Truth, since our mind itself is formed immediately by Truth itself.”3 This grace also affects our wills through the Spirit of love which makes Christ Jesus desirable and worshipful to
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the believer. Raised above natural reason, we come to trust in the Person of Jesus. Because it is of divine origin, faith secures the believer in a sure conviction, simply because it places its trust in the One revealing. We are then able to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God: not by our own “flesh and blood,” but by the grace of our heavenly Father who revealed it.4 The author of Hebrews refers to this gift of faith as “knowledge of the truth” and proving “the existence of the realities that at present remain unseen.”5 Faith is a supernatural virtue, freely given, which disposes the whole person firmly to assent to those truths revealed by God, in the Holy Scriptures and the teachings of Holy Church, because he is truth itself.6 Without revelation our reasoning is aimless. Our limited minds merely receive information via the senses, while reason by its own light simply deduces and judges. So reason is powerless to create truth, especially the Uncreated Truth of God. Even though reason and evidence can prepare for faith by making belief convincing (or by inferring the divine ideas each thing reflects), only God can give that illumination which awakens trust in him, converting natural, reasoned belief into supernatural, trusting faith: credo ut intelligere (I believe in order to understand). The faith we are proclaiming is our faith in Jesus Christ. Merely to believe in the existence of God is not yet faith. Such belief is but a natural conviction of the light
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of reason supported by evidence from creation: “For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them since God himself has made it plain. Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and deity - however invisible - have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made.�7 But faith in Christ, being from above, is different in kind. It is a supernatural gift which imparts certainty not the certainty of reason and evidence - but an interior conviction born of a personal experience of Christ. It is through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us by faith that God the Father and the Son are made present, enabling us to participate in the life of the Holy Trinity. The soul thus informed and invigorated is capable of living a life more holy and spiritual than those who remain in the natural state. Increasing in virtue, the soul becomes more beautiful and more pleasing to the Father, because it is coming to resemble the Son in virtue and in truth. Insofar as the individual conforms to the likeness of God through the graces infused into the soul, so one becomes transformed to what God loves to the uttermost: his Son. God’s love for us is such that he wills we become the unvarnished image of the Son, because God, who always acts in accordance with his own wisdom, does everything for the glory of his Son who is the Wisdom of the Father.8 And just as the Logos lovingly submits to the will of the Father in being the splendour of the Father, so analogously we, in our faithful submission to the will of Christ, mirror
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him as our love for God and for others radiates. Suffused ever more fully with the life of Christ, which is his Spirit living within us, we become a “light for the world” drawing others to Christ, thereby fulfilling our vocations as faithful followers of Our Lord. Now holiness requires certain actions in obedience to Christ such as: prayer, worship, the Mass, charity, works of mercy, penance, study of the Scriptures, self-discipline, etc. These sow the words of Jesus into our relationships with others spreading the kingdom as does the mustard seed which becomes a great tree. These are the works that faith happily accomplishes. Without such works faith is dead.9 It is precisely through such patient, and oftentimes courageous, perseverance that faith purges us of all that would separate us from the knowledge and fullness of God. This constancy in obedience lends faith this pur gative capacity because it is faith that inspires the devout to say “Thy will, not my will.” Authentic, humble faith predisposes one to obey God’s word: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. Therefore, “it is impossible to please God without faith.”10 But much more than this, faith makes us participants (consortes divinae naturae) in the divine life and thought. By faith, God’s wisdom becomes our wisdom, his knowledge our knowledge, and his Spirit our spirit. For as the Father begets the Son for the sake of the love he has for the Son - who in turn comes from the Father glorifying and
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honouring him as his image - so we, in receiving through faith the graces which render us more pleasing to the Father, then love the Father with the very Spirit of Christ in us, and glorify the Father with the glory of the life of Christ within us. “I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so completely one that the world will realise that it was you who sent me and that I have loved them as much as you loved me.”11 In the fruitfulness of the Spirit, the Father generates the Son, and in the Spirit of submission the Son glorifies his Father. Thus, as the Holy Spirit is the substance of both this fertile, generating love (from the Father) and this resplendent, glorifying love (from the Son), so we also return this love to the Father through the self-giving of his Son in us. Then all we accomplish or endure becomes a sweet oblation to God. And our lives become a perpetual prayer - our crosses a triumph - and all of existence betrays a hidden grace.12 Such sanctity would be beyond us were it not for Christ’s gift of the Church and her sacraments. The holy Catholic Church safeguards us in the truth, handed down to us from the Apostles. Her liturgy and traditions form and strengthen our faith. And her sacraments infuse grace into our hearts.
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In other words, brothers, through the blood of Jesus we have the right to enter the sanctuary, by a new way which he has opened for us, a living opening through the curtain, that is to say, his body. And we have the supreme high priest over all the house of God. So as we go in, let us be sincere in heart and filled with faith, our minds sprinkled and free from any trace of bad conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us keep firm in the hope we profess, because the one who made the promise is faithful.13
Thus, we are “certain of this: neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.�14 * * * Since faith is our response to the very life of Christ in us quickened by his Holy Spirit and nourished by the sacraments of the Church, it follows that our faith necessarily receives its vitality through prayer. Therefore, the prayers contained in this volume are compiled to nurture this gift of faith by focussing on various themes which imply the truths of Catholic teaching, as found in the creeds, the Catechism of the Church, her liturgy, devotion to Our Lady, and the traditions of the saints. In particular, this book is compiled according to the intentions of the
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Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, for the Year of Faith as given in his document Porta Fidei (door of faith).15 The pastoral recommendations given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith states that this “Year” is “intended to contribute to a renewed conversion to the Lord Jesus and to the rediscovery of faith.” To this end the prayers, novenas, and meditations contained herein reflect and present the richness of the Catholic faith from the earliest sources to more modern forms, in varying lengths and degrees of profundity, all selected to inform, strengthen, deepen, and enrich your life in Christ. Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.16
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The Holy Father’s Prayer for the Year of Faith
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Spirit of Life, which in the beginning hovered over the abyss, Help humanity of our time to understand that the exclusion of God leads to being lost in the desert of the world. And that only where faith enters, do dignity and liberty flourish and the whole society is built on justice. Spirit of Pentecost, which makes of the Church one Body, restore in the baptised an authentic experience of communion; render yourself a living sign of the presence of the Risen One in the world, a community of saints that lives in the service of charity. Holy Spirit, which trains to the mission, make us recognise that, also in our time, so many persons are in search of the truth about their existence and the world. Make us collaborators of their joy with the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, grain of the wheat of God, which renders good the terrain of life and assures the abundance of the harvest. Amen.
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Prayers to the Most Holy Trinity
Meditation With firm faith I believe and lovingly confess with joy that although thou, God, art most simple and one, having one only divinity and essence, nevertheless, thou art three Persons in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For thou art eternal, immense and perfect. Thou art of most wise intelligence…Thou, therefore, dost know, understand and contemplate thyself eternally always, actually, perfectly, comprehensively…Thou dost express, utter, conceive and produce within thyself that which thou knowest and understandest concerning thyself. And this utterance spoken within thyself…is thy Word coeternal, unchangeable and equal in all things to thee. Moreover, I believe and confess with love and joy that thou Father…dost also eternally and perfectly love him as thyself, with an essential love which is neither personally nor really distinguished from thyself and thy Son. And thou, O Son…dost likewise eternally and perfectly love him with that same essential love. And from this mutual complacency of yours, O Father and Son, you breathe forth and produce from all eternity that love which is the
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sweetest embrace of both your indissoluble bond. This love is called the Holy Spirit, personally distinct from the Father and the Son…one with you, true eternal and illimitable God. J. Michael de Coutances Forty-fifth general of the Carthusian Order, 1597
Hymn Come ye people, let us adore God in three persons: The Father in the Son, with the Holy Spirit, For the Father from everlasting begets the Word, who shares his Kingdom and his eternity, And the Holy Spirit is in the Father, glorified with the Son, a single power, a single essence, a single Godhead. This it is whom we adore, saying: Holy God, who didst create all by thy Son with the aid of the Holy Spirit; Holy and Strong, by whom we have come to know the Father, by whom the Holy Spirit has come into the world;
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Holy and Immortal, Spirit of Consolation, who dost proceed from the Father and dwellest in the Son: glory be to thee, O Holy Trinity! Great Vespers of Pentecost in the Byzantine Rite
Prayer You are holy, Lord, the only God, and your deeds are wonderful. You are strong. You are great. You are the Most High, you are almighty. You, Holy Father, are King of heaven and earth. You are Three and One, Lord God, all good. You are good, all good, supreme good, Lord God, living and true. You are love, you are wisdom, you are humility, you are endurance. You are rest, you are peace.
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You are joy and gladness. You are justice and moderation. You are all our riches, and you suffice for us. You are beauty. You are gentleness. You are our protector, you are our guardian and defender. You are courage. You are our haven and our hope. You are our faith, our great consolation. You are our eternal life, great and wonderful Lord, God almighty, merciful Saviour.
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St Francis of Assisi Praises of God
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