Ways to Pray
Praying for your Vocation
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Prayer to Discover One’s Own Vocation
Lord, my God and my loving Father, you have made me to know you, to love you, to serve you, and thereby to find and to fulfill my deepest longings. I know that you are in all things, and that every path can lead me to you.
But of them all, there is one especially by which you want me to come to you. Since I will do what you want of me, I pray you, send your Holy Spirit to me: into my mind, to show me what you want of me; into my heart, to give me the determination to do it, and to do it with all my love, with all my mind, and with all of my strength right to the end. Jesus, I trust in you. Amen.
Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, Pope Saint John Paul II
Prayer for Vocations
Most Holy Trinity, blessed and the source of all blessedness, bless your sons and daughters whom you have called to praise the greatness of your love, your merciful goodness, and your beauty.
Father Most Holy, sanctify the sons and daughters who have consecrated themselves to you, for the glory of your name. Enfold them with your power, enabling them to bear witness that you are the origin of all things, the one source of love and freedom. We thank you for the gift of the consecrated life, which in faith seeks you and in its universal mission invites all people to draw near to you. Jesus our Savior, Incarnate Word, as you have entrusted your own way of life to those whom you have called, continue to draw to yourself men and women who will be, for the people of our time, dispensers of mercy, heralds of your return, living signs of the Resurrection and of its treasures of virginity, poverty and obedience. May no tribulation separate them from you and from your love! Holy Spirit, Love poured into our hearts, who grant grace and inspiration to our minds, the perennial Source of life, who bring to fulfillment the mission of Christ by means of many charisms, we pray to you for all consecrated persons. Fill their hearts with the deep certainty of having been chosen to love, to praise, and to serve. Enable them to savor your friendship, fill them with your joy and consolation, help them to overcome moments of difficulty and to rise up again with trust after they have fallen; make them mirrors of the divine beauty. Give them the courage to face the challenges of our time and the grace to bring to all mankind the goodness and loving kindness of our Savior Jesus Christ.
“Our thoughts are not easily God’s thoughts, nor our wills His will. But as we listen to Him and converse with Him, our minds will be given to understand Him and His designs. The more we come through prayer to relish what is right, the better we shall work in our mission for the realization of the kingdom.”
Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross, 3:21
Holy Cross Directory of Devotional Prayer
Prayer for Vocations to the Congregation of Holy Cross
Our Lady of Sorrows
Holy Mary, Our Lady of Holy Cross,
your Son instructed His disciples to pray
that the Lord of the harvest supply workers for the kingdom.
Faithful to Jesus’ instruction we come to you, our mother and patroness,
and beg you to intercede with your Son for an increase of vocations to religious life in the family of Holy Cross.
Confident that Holy Cross is not a human work but God’s very own,
and that Divine Providence has inspired and sustained our life in Holy Cross,
we entrust our future to your maternal care.
As a woman of sorrow,
whose heart was filled with compassion for those who suffer,
pray that men and women of compassion will accept God’s call
to make God known, loved, and served
through their life and ministry in the Family of Holy Cross.
Amen.
