St. Therese of Lisieux prayer for priests is a short prayer asking God to bless priests with an increase in virtue, holiness, and protect them from temptation.
Who is Saint Thérèse of Lisieux?
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, born as Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin, was born in 1873 in France. She lived a very short life. As a young girl she received from the Holy Spirit the desire to pray for priests.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux is also known for her “Little Way” of spirituality written about in her autobiography entitled: The Story of a Soul.
St. Thérèse realized the necessity of praying for priests in 1887 when her local bishop encouraged her to go on a pilgrimage to Rome and she went with about two hundred pilgrims, and nearly half of them were Catholic priests.
Saint Thérèse later told that that this pilgrimage gave her a deeper understanding of the need of prayer for priests. Before this trip, Thérèse could not understand why Saint Teresa of Avila instructed her Carmelite nuns to pray for priests.
Until the pilgrimage, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux believed in the absolute holiness of priests. Thérèse often prayed for sinners, but before her pilgimage she never thought of praying a prayer for priests.
Thérèse once wrote, “I lived in the company of many saintly priests for a month and I learned that, though their dignity raises them above the angels, they are nevertheless weak and fragile men.”
We must be committed to praying diligently for our priests. As my confessor once told me, priests are the devil’s trophy. They need our continual prayers.
If you like this prayer for priests, maybe you’d like to do a Holy Hour for Priests or view our other prayers for priests.
Beautiful Prayer for Priests
by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
O Jesus,
Eternal Priest, keep your priests within the shelter of Your Most Sacred Heart, where none can touch them. Keep unstained their anointed hands which daily touch Your sacred Body. Keep unsullied their lips daily tinged with Your precious Blood. Keep pure and unworldly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood. Let Your holy love surround and protect them from the world’s contagion. Bless their labors with abundant fruit, and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here, and their everlasting crown in eternity.
Amen
If you liked this prayer, you may want to pray the Litany of Jesus Christ, Priest and Victim.
From Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux
“The second experience I had relates to priests. Having never lived close to them, I was not able to understand the principal aim of the Reform of Carmel. To pray for sinners attracted me, but to pray for the souls of priests whom I believed to be as pure as crystal seemed puzzling to me!
I understood my vocation in Italy and that’s not going too far in search of such useful knowledge. I lived in the company of many saintly priests for a month and I learned that, although their dignity raises them above the angels, they are nevertheless weak and fragile men. If holy priests, whom Jesus in His gospel calls “the salt of the earth,” show in their conduct their extreme need for prayers, what is to be said of those who are tepid? Didn’t Jesus say too: “If the salt loses its savor, wherewith will it be salted?”
How beautiful is the vocation, O Mother, which has as its aim the preservation of the salt destined for souls! This is Carmel’s vocation since the sole purpose of our prayers and sacrifices is to be the apostle of the apostles. We are to pray for them while they are preaching to souls, through their words and especially through their example. I must stop here, for were I to continue I would never come to an end!”