East Anglia Seminarians: The Year of Faith

Thursday 11 October 2012

The Year of Faith

So it begins! The Year of Faith which the Holy Father has inaugurated on the anniversary of the opening of Vatican II (1962) and the publishing of the subsequent Catechism (1992). It is a year in which he invites us to enter more deeply into the faith, as through a door into our true home:

"The door of faith" (Acts 14: 27) is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church. (Pope Benedict, Apostolic Letter "Porta Fidei", 1)

Far from being something closed, then, faith is something that opens us to the full panorama of our human horizons, where earth and Heaven touch. For this reason, the Catechism dares to say that

faith is already the beginning of eternal life. (CCC 163)

In this Year, we are encouraged to renew our faith in two ways:

i) we renew our fundamental act of faith, by which we place our trust in God alone, whose initiative of grace invites this response from us. In this way we imitate Mary, who offered her life to God in complete confidence, thereby loosening the knot of Eve's disobedience (see Lumen Gentium 56).

ii) We turn again to the content of our faith, the fidei depositum. What do we believe? What has God entrusted to us through his Word in Scripture and in the Church's Tradition? Who is Christ? How does God act in human history? How are we saved? What is the Church? What is the purpose of the sacraments? What is the role of the saints? We ponder these questions anew as we reflect on our Creed. Again, we imitate Mary, who pondered in her heart the mystery of her Son, who is the fulness of revelation (Lk 2: 51).

So during this year I for one will be thinking of ways I can renew my confidence in and dependence on God, as well as how I can internalise the mysteries of the faith which God reveals in the Church for our salvation.

There is a Mass in St John's cathedral Norwich today to celebrate the start of this year. Though I cannot be there, I am thinking of and praying for the diocese as we enter into this privileged time!

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Prayer for Priestly Vocations

O Lord Jesus Christ, Who moved to pity at the sight of the multitudes, scattered like sheep without a shepherd, didst say to Thy disciples: "The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send labourers into His harvest," deign to turn Thine eyes of pity on this our diocese, and to call to Thy priesthood young men, who will spend themselves and be spent for Thy honour and glory, and for the souls whom Thou has redeemed with Thy Most Precious Blood, Who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer for Seminarians

O Lord Jesus Christ, great High Priest, I pray that You call many worthy souls to Your holy priesthood.

Enlighten the Bishop in the choice of candidates, the Spiritual Director in molding them, and the professors in instructing them.

Lead the seminarians daily in Your unerring footsteps; so that they may become priests who are models of purity, possessors of wisdom and heroes of sacrifice; steeped in humility and aflame with love for God and man; apostles of Your glory and sanctifiers of souls.

Amen.

Prayer for the Pope

V. Let us pray for our Pontiff, Pope Benedict.
R. The Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him to be blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies

Our Father. Hail Mary.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, have mercy upon Thy servant, Benedict, our Supreme Pontiff, and direct him, according to Thy loving-kindness, in the way of eternal salvation; that, of thy gift, he may ever desire that which is pleasing unto thee and may accomplish it with all his might. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen

Prayer for the Queen

V. O Lord, save Elizabeth, our Queen.
R. And hear us on the day we call upon you.

V. O Lord, hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come before you.

[V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with your spirit.]

Let us pray

Almighty God, we pray, that your servant Elizabeth, our Queen, who, by your providence has received the governance of this realm, may continue to grow in every virtue, that, imbued with your heavenly grace, she may be preserved from all that is harmful and evil and, being blessed with your favour may, with her consort and the royal family, come at last into your presence, through Christ who is the way, the truth and the life and who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.