Monday, October 20, 2008

Novena for Faithful Citizenship - Day Two


Opening Prayer:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love.

Reading: Psalm 146:1-8

Praise the LORD, my soul; I shall praise the LORD all my life, sing praise to my God while I live. Put no trust in princes, in mere mortals powerless to save. When they breathe their last, they return to the earth; that day all their planning comes to nothing. Happy those whose help is Jacob's God, whose hope is in the LORD, their God, the maker of heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,
the LORD gives sight to the blind;
The LORD raises up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.

Reflection:
Who are the oppressed in your community? How am I helping them secure justice? How am I helping feed and give sight to those most in need?

Prayer:
God of Jacob, strengthen our hope in the Lord. Help us to keep the faith by striving for justice in our land. Give us hearts, hands and feet to truly reach out to those in need.
Amen.

Novena Prayer:

Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasureable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths toward the future.
From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against human life from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us.
Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies. Help us with the power ofthe Holy Spirit conquer all sin; individual sin and the "sin of the world", sin in all its manifestations.
Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world thi infinite saving power of the redemption: the power of merciful love.
May it put a stop to evil.
May it transform consciences.
May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope.
Amen.

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