Father Ricardo Bailey

The June 2004 issue of serraUSA featured an article on Father Ricardo Bailey from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. We did not obtain the rights to reprint the article on the web, but you may request Xerox copies of it from adecourtenay@serraus.org. 

Below is a prayer written by Father Bailey, used by Serrans in District 169.

District 169 of Serra International

Prayer for Priests 

Almighty and ever-living God, you provide for your people in their need and you answer their prayers. We ask you at this time to hear our prayer for more men to hear your call to serve our Church as priests of the new covenant.
 
We ask you, Heavenly Father, for loving, caring, selfless and generous men to teach us, to sanctify us and to guide us in your ways.
 
We pray for the priests who minister to us right now. Help them, good Lord, to remain faithful to you and to the Church. Hear them in their times of need and sustain them in their ministry and in the wonderful graces they received on their ordination day.
 
We pray for the priests who are ill or forgotten. We pray for the priests who have left active ministry, we pray for the priests who have lost their joy in ministerial service, and we remember all the priests who have died. Assist, assure and heal these men in the way that only you can.
 
We pray and thank you for the priests who celebrate your sacraments daily. We thank you for the priests who celebrate the Eucharist for us, we thank you for the priests who gave us a new identity in and through you in the sacrament of Baptism, anointed us when we were ill through the sacramental celebration of the Anointing of the Sick, blessed our marriages in the sacrament of Matrimony and reconciled us through the wonderful celebration of Penance.
 
We thank you for our bishops who celebrate the sacrament of confirmation for us and who ordain the men you called to serve your people in the sacrament of Holy Orders.
 
Help us as Serrans to work diligently and tirelessly for the support and sanctification of our priests. Help us to love them and to appreciate them in all that they are and in all that they do. Through the intercession of our patron Blessed Junipero Serra, revive the ministerial priesthood in holiness so that your Church may renew the face of the earth.
Blessed Junipero Serra . . . Pray for us. Amen.
 

Composed by Father Ricardo Bailey, Archdiocese of Atlanta, Ga.

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