I implore you to pray for your shepherds

(c)Mateo Ivankovic 2016 J.M.J. April 8, 2016 First Friday   Dear Family of Mary!   "...I implore you to pray for your shepherds that at every moment they may have love, that they may work for my Son with love - through Him and in memory of Him. Thank you." (April 2, 2016)   Someone wrote to me after we received the April 2 message, expressing great joy that Our Lady again asked us to pray for our shepherds. I felt the same way! The last message in which Our Lady asked for prayer for our shepherds was December 2, 2015!   Why are we so happy to pray for our shepherds? Well, it must be that we love them so much! We are aware that they have given their lives to become our pastors, our caretakers in the faith. Through them we encounter the Eucharistic Lord. In the confessional they forgive us and counsel us with Jesus' words and Jesus' mercy. They teach us about the Lord at Mass, through the Scriptures and the Church's tradition. They watch over us day and night. We love them!   Here are some of the ways Our Lady has asked us to pray for them:   Pray for your shepherds that they may have the strength and the love to be bridges of salvation. (12/02/15)   "Pray also for your shepherds, for those who renounced everything for the sake of my Son and for your sake. Love them and pray for them." (10/02/15)   "Pray to be able to see my Son in your shepherds. Pray to be able to embrace Him in them." (08/02/15)   "Pray for your shepherds. They belong to my Son. He called them. Pray that they may always have the strength and the courage to shine with the light of my Son." (06/02/15)   "Pray for the holiness of your shepherds, so that in the name of my Son they can work miracles, because holiness works miracles. Thank you." (05/02/15)   "Pray for your shepherds because they are the strength of the Church which my Son left to you. Through my Son, they are the shepherds of souls. Thank you." (03/02/15)   "I am imploring you anew to pray for your shepherds so that they may always look to my Son who was the first Shepherd of the world and whose family was the entire world." (12/02/14)   "Pray that your shepherds, with their blessed hands, may always give you the joy of God's blessing. Thank you." (03/18/14)   We love our priests, our shepherds. They are bridges of salvation who have renounced everything for the sake of Jesus and for our sake as well. They make it so that we can see Jesus in the Eucharist and in all the Sacraments. They are the strength of the Church! May they always look to Jesus for strength and wisdom, and may we be blessed by their consecrated hands with Your blessing, Jesus!   Here is a beautiful prayer for priests written by John Cardinal O'Connor:   Lord Jesus, we your people pray to You for our priests. You have given them to us for OUR needs. We pray for them in THEIR needs.   We know that You have made them priests in the likeness of your own priesthood. You have consecrated them, set them aside, annointed them, filled them with the Holy Spirit, appointed them to teach, to preach, to minister, to console, to forgive, and to feed us with Your Body and Blood.   Yet we know, too, that they are one with us and share our human weaknesses. We know too that they are tempted to sin and discouragement as are we, needing to be ministered to, as do we, to be consoled and forgiven, as do we. Indeed, we thank You for choosing them from among us, so that they understand us as we understand them, suffer with us and rejoice with us, worry with us and trust with us, share our beings, our lives, our faith.   We ask that You give them this day the gift You gave Your chosen ones on the way to Emmaus: Your presence in their hearts, Your holiness in their souls, Your joy in their spirits. And let them see You face to face in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread.   We pray to You, O Lord, through Mary the mother of all priests, for Your priests and for ours. Amen.   (March, 1995)   In Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Cathy Nolan ©Mary TV 2016