Prayers: My Family, Our Popes, Steubenville, Our Nation

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today.

Thank You for the Precious Gift that is my family: my wife and daughters, and thank You for their safe journey home from the Philippines.  It was a long time that they were away, and, in retrospect, quite painful in the solitude I endured, ... but only in retrospect.  Thank You for giving me the fortitude to bear through and to press on through each day that they were away.

Thank You for another Week of work.  This marks me entering my third year of employment with Celerity and Fannie Mae, and I ask You to bless them abundantly for their generosity in giving me and so many others work to do during these hard times that is both purposeful and fulfilling.

LORD, please watch over and bless my nephew and niece, Peter and Sofia, as they are baptized this Easter. Please bless my dear brother and sister Beki and Howland, their parents, as they have their children baptized.

LORD, watch over our new Pope, Francis, as he begins this Petrine ministry. LORD, please watch ove our old Pope, Benedict XVI, as he ends his.  Both have so much wisdom to guide us, both are a blessing from You. LORD, please help us to see the blessings our Popes are to us and incline our ears and our hearts so that we may listen to the wisdom they have to share and that we may act in accord with that wisdom.

LORD, a special plea and prayer to be with the girl in Steubenville as she recovers from her ordeal. Please, LORD, give her care, love, support, and everything she needs to let go of resentment or bitterness or (self)blame. Please, LORD, Steubenville was such a beacon  of hope and prayer and goodness for young Catholics going to college, and so much good came from that little, unremarkable town. Please, LORD, may some good come out of this terrible National attention. May, in all this awfulness, Your Will be rediscovered. May Your Will be done. May Your Spirit come to rest on Steubenville and upon our Nation and provide strength, comfort, compassion, and healing.

Today was St. Joseph's Day, Patron of the Church, and the name-day for Pope Benedict XVI, né Joseph Ratzinger. I ask St. Joseph to pray for our Church, to pray with Mary, Matron Saint of the United Sttes, as he prays for our Nation. I ask him, and especially the Holy Family to pray for families and especially to pray for my family, that I may provide for it and protect it, as You, LORD, provide for us and protect us. 

I ask all these things in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.