Prayer Requests

A reader writes:

Some of you may recall that I asked for prayers for our RCIA team leader. Unfortunately, she has lost her battle with cancer and passed away this Wednesday. Please pray for the repose of her soul.

Despite the obvious tragedy, there is a certain Providential fittingness that she passed on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, one week before Lent. Just as the waters at Lourdes heal the sick so do the waters of Baptism heal our souls. Death is really liberation to return to the Father. She passed, so I am told, excited to see the Kingdom.
We must be born again in water and the Spirit.

Father, may her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Grant grace, peace, consolation, strength, faith, hope,and love to all who love her. Mother Mary, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen!

Another reader writes:

I know there are a lot of people who are suffering, who need prayers, and going through a whole lot more than I am. I do ask, though, for prayers. I’m afraid of losing work and not having any ability to turn the tide. I wish God would please help and assist me to keep what I’m doing. I due enjoy what I do, and ask for Sanctifying grace to please work in a manner not only pleasing to Him, but to live well with what I have as well. I’m finding, also, taking care of my Grandma especially hard as I cannot keep up helping her and work. The other present stress is my brother lives with us. He has a cunning snaky character. He will try to take charge of my Grandma’s home, and will eventually have her out of her home with my oldest Uncle’s assistance. I have temptation towards lust and horrible desires. I’m also getting angry a lot more and filled with so much deep hatred. I want to please be cure and lifted up. I get depressed and swimming against an endless sea. I feel God is just holding me like mud at the end of His hand and trying to wash me away. I feel as though all these circumstances keep plaguing me so much, God is not only allowing them to happen, but doesn’t really assist nor help me. He just stands their blindly staring and just not caring or holding me out of danger. God’s love is no longer around me. He is just letting evil and things which rob me of love and the perfect warmth of charity away. I feel as though lust and all the desires towards temptation keep having a complete grasp and hold on my life. I feel through circumstances of my life, I’m being spelled out to be crooked and evil. Through the trauma of a broken home, and all the licentious works that came out of it, and the abuses, God letting that evil laying claim to my mind, makeup, believe, and as a person. God doesn’t let me be free of the bondage of sin. He just allows it, and it conquers me. I cannot rust him at this moment, and find it hard. Please pray for me. God please love me.

69 [68] Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
3 I am weary with my crying;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God.

4 ¶ More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;
mighty are those who would destroy me,
those who attack me with lies.
What I did not steal
must I now restore?
5 O God, you know my folly;
the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.
6 Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,
O Lord GOD of hosts;
let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me,
O God of Israel.
7 For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach,
that shame has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my brethren,
an alien to my mother’s sons.

9 ¶ For zeal for your house has consumed me,
and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.
10 When I humbled my soul with fasting,
it became my reproach.
11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became a byword to them.
12 I am the talk of those who sit in the gate,
and the drunkards make songs about me.

13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your mercy answer me.
With your faithful help 14 rescue me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.
15 Let not the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the pit close its mouth over me.

16 Answer me, O LORD, for your merciful love is good;
according to your abundant compassion, turn to me.
17 Hide not your face from your servant;
for I am in distress, make haste to answer me.
18 Draw near to me, redeem me,
set me free because of my enemies!

19 You know my reproach,
and my shame and my dishonor;
my foes are all known to you.
20 Insults have broken my heart,
so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none;
and for comforters, but I found none.
21 ¶ They gave me gall for food,
and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 ¶ Let their own table before them become a snare;
let their sacrificial feasts be a trap.
23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see;
and make their loins tremble continually.
24 ¶ Pour out your indignation upon them,
and let your burning anger overtake them.
25 ¶ May their camp be a desolation,
let no one dwell in their tents.
26 For they persecute him whom you have struck down,
and him whom you have wounded, they afflict still more.
27 Add to them punishment upon punishment;
may they have no acquittal from you.
28 ¶ Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;
let them not be enrolled among the righteous.

29 But I am afflicted and in pain;
let your salvation, O God, set me on high!

30 I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 This will please the LORD more than an ox
or a bull with horns and hoofs.
32 Let the humble see it and be glad;
you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
33 For the LORD hears the needy,
and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

34 Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and everything that moves therein.
35 For God will save Zion
and rebuild the cities of Judah;
and his servants shall dwell there and possess it;
36  the children of his servants shall inherit it,
and those who love his name shall dwell in it. (Ps 69:1–36).

Father, hear our prayer through your Son Jesus Christ! Mother Mary, pray for my reader and all those in his life.