Blessed Marmion Novena: Day Two

The Second Day of the Novena
Saturday, 23 January 2010
O Holy Spirit, Love of the Father and the Son,
establish Thyself as a furnace of love in the centre of our hearts
and bear constantly upwards, like eager flames,
our thoughts, our affections, and our actions
even to the bosom of the Father.

Christ communicates to His priests something more than a mere delegation. He clothes them with His own power; He operates efficaciously through their ministry. That is why their priesthood is so entirely subordinated to that of Christ, but it is from this subordination that its supreme dignity is born; it is the reflection of the priesthood of Christ among us. The priest is entrusted with sacred gifts. And this is so in a double sense: to the Father he offers Jesus sacramentally immolated; this is the supreme gift which the Church on earth presents to God; to men he distrubutes the fruits of the redemption, that is to say he imparts to them the divine graces and pardons. The priest is associated with the whole work of the Cross, as the authorized dispenser of the treasures and the mercies of Christ.

V. Pray for us, Blessed Columba Marmion.
R. That our lives may be hid with Christ in God.
Let us pray.
O God, Almighty Father,
who, having called the blessed abbot Columba
to the priesthood and to the monastic way of life,
wonderfully opened to him the secrets of the mysteries of Christ,
grant, in Thy goodness,
that, strengthened by his teachings
in the spirit of our adoption as Thy sons,
we may pray to Thee with a boundless confidence,
and so obtain, through his intercession,
a favourable answer
to the petitions we place before Thee.
[Express your intentions and requests.]
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son,
who liveth and reigneth with Thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God forever and ever.
R. Amen.