Spirit, draw my loved ones into faith and Sacrament
Dear God, the welfare and happiness of my loved ones is radically important to me. When they suffer, I suffer with them. When they are happy, I rejoice. I wish them to attain their happiness and potential, their welfare and security.
They labour to develop and excel in their talents, to overcome difficulties, and to be generous to others. Thank You for the love and goodness in their hearts and interactions, for love is the action of Your Spirit. Jesus said that kind and generous acts are what “separate the sheep from the goats”; and “whatever you do for even the least of my little ones, you do for Me.”
Thank You, God where I had grace to witness love to them as a legacy. **Although I tried sincerely, I failed to lastingly transmit to my descendents that Jesus came to teach us, to save us, and to give us the Sacraments when He commissioned His first priests and the Church through the Holy Spirit in Confirmation after His ascension. **
Despite John the Baptist’s objection, Jesus sought baptism as example to us of the necessity of this Sacrament. He gave us the Sacrament of Reconciliation through His first priests, the apostles, when he said, “Whose sins you will forgive, they are forgiven, whose sins you shall retain, they are retained”.
On the eve of His sacrificial death for our redemption, Jesus gave us Eucharist as His crowning gift, changing bread and wine into His body and blood, enjoining us through His first priests to do this in memory of Him. If we live as if the word, example, and desire of God Incarnate are meaningless, are we not calling Jesus Christ, God and man, a liar and a fool?
However, if my loved ones lack the gift of faith from the Holy Spirit, they cannot fake it and it is unrealistic and unfair to expect them to sacrifice their time, energy, or regret. Clarifications of their ideological positions reveal that, without extraordinary grace, they are unlikely to seek the Sacraments or to embrace the Catholic Church. I cannot change their feelings about God and the Sacraments, as You gave everyone free will.
My loved ones are Yours also. They are sincere and live good lives. If You want them to love You, call them to Yourself, in time, if not now.
They see that the community of the Church is imperfect, because people are imperfect. The Church suffers human shortcomings and restrictions, because many Christians are not committed enough, and because for decades few men whom You have called to priesthood in Western countries have responded, thus a shortage of priests cripples the Church. Please override these imperfections to allow Your Spirit in the Church to speak to society and to family.
Jesus said that some things are not achieved except by both prayer and sacrifice, so please help me make the sacrifices necessary to obtain for them a genuine faith in You, an active relationship with You in faithful Spirit-filled lives. Help my loved ones in every way as I continue to pray and offer Mass for them.
Please fulfil Your intentions for my dear ones and me. I want to love You wholeheartedly and to live a Eucharistic life for family, priests, and others’ souls. You are my life, and my hope, and I am Your child. I wish to live in the Spirit according to Your dream of me, for me, and through me. September 2005
God, please forgive anything in my nature and behaviour that blocked graces intended for loved ones. I offer the incarnation, life, sacrifice, resurrection and divinity of Jesus, for their sake and for everyone You desire me to love and serve. God please go back into the moments where I failed make others’ lives easier and happier. Please warm the moments, heal the issues with Your love, and please make up for any way I have failed or hurt anyone.
My family, forgive any way that I fail you. I love you and I am grateful and respectful of your goodness and kindness, and of all your amazing achievements. I hope that God your heavenly Parent is very proud of you. I honour God for creating you, for shaping you and giving the gifts that are hidden in your being for God’s secret delight, and for giving you those gifts that you share with others. God’s love shines through you in many colours and subtleties, whether you realise or not. You are beautiful prisms of God’s love. God is honoured as another facet shines through in something you do or say for others.
I know that you are not ‘perfect’. Yet a concept of ‘perfection’ is confusing because Jesus’ humanness portrayed itself no less humanly than yours. His love for others, like yours, was evident.
He displayed the range of human emotions and responses, “without sin”, despite what seemed like rage in the temple, and occasional harsh words to the self-serving and indifferent. His disappointments and discouragement appear sometimes amid his efforts and suffering as do his grief, his joy, his tenderness, and his friendliness.
May you grow ever more Christlike, more wholly human, as God shapes you, unknown perhaps to you. I love you, as you are, with your wonderful strengths and your natural human weaknesses. I love you, with your successes and failures. I love you with the shadows you hide and with the beauty you reveal. I love you as you are, now, and always, while I live and when I die, my darling sons.
