A Mother's Prayer for Vocations
O Holy One O Perfect Source and Cause of all life Open me to your will. You are great, and highly to be praised O Most High LORD, Father of all that is. You created my mouth to praise You, my heart to love You, my soul to sing in Your love. Do not look upon my many sins and faults, O LORD, but only see what good I bring today. The Yes and No of my first parents brings me here: Their Yes brought me to existence. Their No brought me to that inherited sinfulness, that also brings me here in supplication and repentance. Their Yes and No also echoes within me always: I reach out and stumble. I call out and then turn away. I speak to You and then stop my ears. I thirst for You and swallow sand. How good You are and merciful, that in Your love You reach through the veil and enter time: first in flesh, that many longed to touch, and many others longed to tear to shreds. How unfathomable, how unsearchable, that You permitted both! And even now in flesh You're here with me that I may never starve for You again. O Perfect Justice, Perfect Mercy, melting on my tongue! In memory of You I here receive! In memory of You Your Shepherds give! In gratitude of heart I sing to You, and while You're near my heart, I also beg: Remember Your beloved sheep! We cannot live for long without Your care, in ways that we poor creatures understand! Give us many shepherds, many priests! Many bishops, and the bishop after Peter, whose staff protects the sheepfold and whose keys unlock the Palace! How can we live, O LORD, without Your Life and those who bring It to us? The sevenfold signs that strengthen us on these rocky slopes are theirs to give, not because Your shepherds are above us, but rather that You chose them from among us, that we might see that you speak every language, and learn from You, through them, Your perfect Wisdom, and, through them, bring us safely home to You. O Priests! O Shepherds! Baptize and confirm us! Feed us with the Body of the Perfect Priest Who made you, and kept you for His own! Wash the swill from our souls in confession. Let not your ears silt up with boredom or despair, or your lips grieve the air while waiting to receive us in the small cell that frees us, but beg Your Father and ours for the tender grace that leads us to those precious words our Father says to us, through your lips: "I absolve you..." O Father, not of bodies, but of souls, Join us, two by two, in matrimony. Purify us by your purity. Let your bond to your Bride, the Church, Mother to us all, give us hope and courage, and life above life. And when the eyes of the soul begin to see beyond the veil and slip beyond the bond of body, O hold us in your consecrated hands, and give us food and healing for the journey. And now, the seventh sacrament, that lets you give us all the rest, O Priest, O Brother of Christ, O Son of Mary, O hearer, O healer, O doer, O dreamer, O shredded on the Cross for all of us, you are safer there, than any other place, for you were born for this. O LORD my God, as I here plead for those who plead for us, I also plead for one, my own son. O Mary, strengthen me! I cannot otherwise find words bejeweled and pure enough to raise the supplication that bursts my heart, ineffable! O Mary, seek your Spouse, and beg Him give me strength to see that the sword that pierced you will somehow pierce me too and beg Him give me peace to accept and release my son to become one of yours. May the graces he received as he grew up strengthen others. May the wounds he bore from my own faults be healed, and fill his heart, not with bitterness or regret, but with special tenderness for others thus wounded. O Mary, perfect mother, guard him well; let not the gates of hell prevail against him. And now, sweet Mary, let me turn my call to other mothers, other sons: Let God's yes be yours: O mother: be it Fiat. O son: the fourth cup meant for you
will gush from your side too, washing the world,
making it fresh for the return of your closest brother,
the King of Kings.
O do not refuse its sweetness!