All Holy Penitents, pray for us

An email from my archbishop has been blogged at Pete Vere's CLOG. Please go there, and read it, and pray for all of us, "them" included.

I think it's time to repost this:

A Prayer for Michael Krejci, Russell Banner, John Bertolucci, and all the others.

Lord, we pray for Your priests who must now go away from us. They have reformed their lives, they have been penitent, they have been restored and have given us Your word and Your sacraments faithfully. Yet now, for the good of the whole Church, they must go into anonymous exile.

Lord, You know them, every one. Give them the courage and strength and grace to bear this for You and Your holy Church. Support and heal them, as You did Miriam in her leprous shame, and as You did David the King after his great crimes. Let Your light shine in and through them, as it did in Margaret of Cortona and Mary of Egypt, in Your anonymous one of Sachsenhausen, and in so many of Your holy penitents through all ages.

We, who are also sinners, beg this of You, our all-good Lord. Amen.

[originally posted 07/28/2002]
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