The Nativity Prayer of St Bernard of Clairvaux

Let Your goodness Lord appear to us, that we
made in your image, conform ourselves to it.
In our own strength
we cannot imitate Your majesty, power, and wonder
nor is it fitting for us to try.
But Your mercy reaches from the heavens
through the clouds to the earth below.
You have come to us as a small child,
but you have brought us the greatest of all gifts,
the gift of eternal love
Caress us with Your tiny hands,
embrace us with Your tiny arms
and pierce our hearts with Your soft, sweet cries.

HT: Catholic Key Blog

How did you spend Veteran’s Day?

Read how one military wife did.

And then, whatever prayers you said yesterday for our veterans and their families, say some more today.

I found this very nice “Freedom Prayer” at  National Catholic Register:

Heavenly Father, on this holiday weekend we give thanks to you for the gift and blessing of the freedom we enjoy in our great nation.  We praise you, Lord, for inspiring and guiding our founding fathers as they struggled to build our country and create a new way of living with the goal of freedom and justice for all.
We thank you, Lord, for the courageous self-sacrifice and generous spirit of countless people who have given their life’s blood in the defense of freedom and for the pursuit of justice.  Keep us faithful to the tradition and example we have inherited; may we leave for the next generation a better world, prepared for the dawning of the Kingdom of Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Yes, it’s my birthday. No, I can’t believe another year has flown by and yes, time just seems to go faster and faster and all that cliché-sounding stuff that it turns out really is true.

I’ll steal some age-perspective from my birthday buddy Rachel (who is a whole 3 days older than I am) and tell you that so far, 37 feels an awful lot like 36. And that’s a very good thing.

Since it is my birthday, I am going to be bold and make a request of you, my dear sweet readers who have stuck with this DB.com spot through the years and many changes …

Today, my 6-year-old niece is entering the hospital to begin a regimen that we all hope and pray will resolve a serious medical issue she’s suffered from since she was a baby.

This hospitalization and ongoing treatment will be a great trial for her and her family, but we all do hope and pray that it is the answer we’ve so long sought.

Will you say a prayer for B. today?

Please pray these beautiful words from The Blessing of a Sick Child from the Collectio Rituum (1954):

O God, by Whose help all things grow to maturity and, once grown, are kept strong, stretch out Thy hand over this, Thy young servant, B., in her sickness, that she, having regained her health and strength, may grow up to full womanhood, and unfailingly offer Thee a loyal and pleasing service all the days of her life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thank you.

Prayer for Our President

God of power and might, wisdom and justice,
through You authority is rightly administered,
laws are enacted, and judgment is decreed.
Assist with your spirit of counsel and fortitude
the President and other government leaders of these United States.

May they always seek
the ways of righteousness, justice and mercy.
Grant that they may be enabled by your powerful protection
to lead our country with honesty and integrity.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

(from Bishop Edward K. Braxton, Bishop of the Diocese of Belleville)

O Lord our God, St. Thomas More, patron of statesmen, lived a life of prayer and penance, zeal for justice and integrity in his political service as Lord Chancellor of England. He was guided by the light of the Gospel in his family life. This led him on the path of martyrdom and sainthood. Guide President Barack H. Obama and Vice-President Joseph R. Biden so that they may be courageous and effective in leading and guiding the United States. Inspire them to promote the dignity of every human person from conception to natural death. Hear our prayer in the name of Jesus, who is Christ the Lord.
Amen.

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
– Abraham Lincoln, March 30, 1863

May God bless our servicemen and women and their families. And may God bless America!

I sometimes feel anxious about my children’s futures. I sometimes watch the news and wonder how on earth my children will make their way in this broken world. Someone once advised me, though, that rather than wringing our hands with worry over our children’s futures, we should instead get busy praying for those futures:

1. Pray for your child to know his/her vocation and to be open to the will of God.

2. Pray for your children’s future spouses. Don’t wait until the engagement to start praying for your future sons and daughter-in-laws. You might not know them yet, but you can start praying right now that the people whom your children will marry will avoid bad influences and seek to know, love, and serve God. Pray for their moral safety and right judgment. Ask Mary to keep them close to her heart and ask their guardian angels to protect them from harm and help them grow in virtue.

We can’t control our children’s futures, but we can beg God’s grace for them and their futures every day — starting now.

photo credit

O God, the father of mankind,
Who has given me these, my children,
And committed them to my charge to bring them up for You,
And to prepare them for life everlasting;
Assist me with Your heavenly grace,
That I may be able to fulfill my sacred duty and stewardship.
Teach me both what to give and what to withhold,
When to reprove and when to praise.
Make me gentle, yet firm, considerate and watchful,
And deliver me equally from the weakness of indulgence
And the excess of severity.
Grant that both by work and example,
I may be careful to lead them in the way of wisdom
And true piety; so that at last I may,
With them, be admitted to the joys of our true home in heaven.
Amen.
(Catholic.org)