Prayers for our times


THE QUEEN'S WORK
3742 West Pine Boulevard

St. Louis, Mo.

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SfflA/V\ES J. A\5QiUADE



FOREWORD

I
T IS urged on all sides in Catholic
circles that the doctrine of the Mys-

tical Body of Christ is the modern ap-
peal of the Church. It is likewise said,

and with truth, that the solution to our
social problems lies in the doctrine of

the Mystical Body of Christ. With the
firm conviction that these things are

true, we offer this booklet of prayers.

These prayers contain the doctrine of

the Mystical Body of Christ as applied
to individual and social devotional life.
The petitions made in them embody the
applications of this beautiful truth to

life in modern society.

The prayers are offered in the hope
that they may prove useful in bringing
the concept of the Mystical Body of
Christ more vividly into Catholic con-
sciousness.

They are recommended for the use,
not only of individuals, but also of such

groups as have for their corporate pur-

pose the advancement of the glory of
God through Catholic Social Action.

Oeacmffied



For a Right Viewpoint

A prayer for a realization of our place in the
economy of grace.

We ask you today, Christ, King, to
present our petitions to the most august

Trinity.

We desire first of all a sense of our
union with you, for we really are to-
gether the Body of Christ, and severally
His members.—(I Cor., 12:27.)
Without God we can do nothing, and

without your mediation we can get no
help from God; for, as you said ... No
man cometh to the Father but by me .

—

(John, 14:6.)

Without us, dear King, your prayers
would be incomplete; for, in your own
words, you are the vine and we are the
branches

;
and the vine without its

branches, how will it bear fruit?

It is the great work of your heavenly
kingship to present worthy worship to
the Blessed Trinity for us and with us.
That is your royal priesthood.

It is part of our petition that God may
help us to a consciousness of your royal
priesthood and to a realization of our
share in it; for we also are a royal
priesthood.—(I Peter, 2:9.)

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It is part of our petition that God may
help us to a consciousness of our share

in that royal priesthood
;
for, by a heav-

enly mystery, we are made partakers of
the divine nature.—(II Peter, 1:4.)

In all our being and life we wish to
realize that our prayers and our acts of
worship and service are really always
our prayers and our acts of worship and
service. When we say ^^our prayers’’
and ^^our acts,” that means ours with
yours. Divine Majesty.

For you are joined with us in your
participation of our humanity, and we
are joined with you by our participation
in your divinity.

This is our request, and we make it
to the Blessed Trinity through you. For
you said : I go to the Father, and ivhat-
soever you shall ask the Father in my
name, that will I do.—(John, 14:13.)

4



That the Mass May Matter
A prayer for a full realisation on the part
of all of the great act of corporate -worship.

Lord Jesus Christ, King, together with

you we offer our reverence and adora-
tion to the Blessed Trinity.

We, the members of your Body, offer
up to God the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass every day together with you. For

from the rising of the sun even to the

going doiun . . . there is offered to my
name a clean oblation.—(Mal.y 1:11.)

This clean oblation is you. Together

with you we offer you as a sacrifice
worthy of God.

Lord Jesus Christ, King, in offering

up your Body you offer us up also. For
we are of your Body. We offer ourselves
and yourself as one self to the praise,
reverence and service of our Father
who is in heaven.

I

Lord Jesus Christ, King, it is your
church, your Body, with you as its Head
and us as its members, that offers up
each Holy Sacrifice of that daily series
of Masses that make up man^s only ade-
quate worship of God.

Lord Jesus Christ, King, this daily,
hourly, continuous cooperation between

5



US all in the Mass is the greatest thing
we can do. For your presence with us
makes our act of infinite value, and our
presence with 3^ou makes your act ours.

Lord Jesus Christ, King, in view of
these facts we beg our Father, we beg
through you our Head, we beg through
you our Mediator, the great favor of
giving us help from on high to realize
that every Holy Sacrifice throughout
the world is offered up by us — not by
me alone, not by priests alone, not by
the various nations alone who greet the
gradual progress of dawn with the cele-
bration of our Sacred Mysteries — no,
not by any or all of them alone, but by
all of them and you. In other words
by Us.

Lord Jesus Christ, King, if we can
but have this favor, we shall have a new
life. For such an idea cannot but reform
our selfish spirituality. Such an idea of
union of one with all and all with one
is inconsistent with the notion of ‘H
alone with Christ,^’ with the spirit of

discouragement, with the feeling of our

personal independence of all mankind.

Lord Jesus Christ, King, may we soon
come to realize, through our knowledge
of what the Mass really is, that in our
kingdom there is no ‘‘rugged individ-

6



ualism, ^ ^ no
‘

^ survival of the fittest,
^ ’

none of the other cruel, cold doctrines

of the pagan world, hut only the tri-
umph of love and union in the sweet-
est, loveliest, most beautiful law this

world has ever known: Thou shall love
the Lord thy God ivith thy whole heart
and with thy whole soul and ivith all thy

strength and ivith all thy mind; and thy
neighbor as thyself.—(Luke, 10:27.)
Lord Jesus Christ, King, ask for us

the help we need to train ourselves to
obey that law, not merely because it is

a law, but because of your words : As
long as you did it to one of these my
least brethren, you did it to me.—(Matt.,
25:40.)

Lord Jesus Christ, King, may the par-
ticipation of all of us daily in all the

Masses in all the world be so real to us

that it will have these good effects on our

souls; and may it finally dawn on us
that together we are your Body and
severally your members.

7



Against Communism
A prayer for protection against the forces
at work for the destruction of our country.

0 Royal Majesty, Christ our King,
the idea of your Mystical Body is so
beautiful and so appealing in the
grandeur of its truth that our enemies,

in fear of our success, are bringing be-

fore our poor suffering members a cheap
substitute.

0 Christ our King, the powers of
darkness have risen up against the great
sin that they themselves have created,

the sin of human selfishness that made
of thy members classes.” The powers
of darkness have raised the standard of

class war.

0 Royal Majesty, our adversaries are
doing this thing in the name of such
catchwords as tlie ‘‘dictatorship of the

proletariat” and “Up, mechanized mari-
onettes ! Class War!” They attract the
poor and the outcast by promises of “a
new era,” a “new distribution of
wealth.”

0 Christ our King, they have much
truth on their side. The poor are crushed
by a cruel system of present-day slavery

and want. The rich and powerful in-
dulge their greed and avarice to unbe-
lievable extents of extortion and oppres-

8



sion. Truly it is within the heart of

human nature to rebel against it all.

0 Royal Majesty, you are our inter-
cessor, our mediator with the Blessed

,

Trinity. You are the Head of the Body
of which we are the members. Together
let us ask Our Heavenly Father, whose
benevolent providence watches and
measures all things that this worthy

rebellion may not be in the name of the
cruel tyranny of communism.

0 Christ our King, ask that Divine
Providence for us and with us not to
let the minions of the Third Interna-

tionale succeed in their efforts to con-

fuse the minds of our poor and op-
pressed with their failure to distinguish

between the cruelty of capitalism and
the social justice of our Mystical Body,
with their failure to distinguish between

the passion of lust for gold and the pas-
sion of love for God and man.

0 Royal Majesty, intercede for this
miserable race which seems so headed
for communism. In your mercy prevent
us all from falling into the error of
believing that relief comes from a
destruction of those inalienable rights

which you have given to man. Keep
men from denying your existence be-
cause man has violated your laws. Keep

9



them from communism’s divorce, from
communism’s abortion and birth con-
trol

;
keep them from communism ’s mass

murder of the ill, the lame, and the
•blind; save them from communism’s
tyranny and depression.

0 Christ King, let us have the good
offices of your mediatorship in securing

from God the favor that the powers of
darkness be set at nought in this new
trick they are playing on man. For it is
very clever : They have tempted man to
be cruel to man, and man has fallen;
then they have made the best of man’s
inhumanity to man” to plunge man into
a slavery that sacrifices life, liberty and

the pursuit of happiness for a godless,

regimented, moronic existence called

communism.

0 Royal Majesty, Christ our King,
through you and with you and in you,
we, your Mystical Body, present this
petition to the Court of Heaven that
communism may fail.

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Against Capitalism

A prayer that greed may he checked.

0 Carpenter of Nazareth, intercede
for us before your Heavenly Father, for

we are afflicted greatly in this world of
evil men for whom you refused to pray
—evil men who devour the houses of
widows,—(Matt,, 23:14,) Those that are
greedy for gain have troubled your

house.

0 Son of Joseph, our Head and our
Master, men to whom God has given
riches and substance and honor have an
evil eye toward evil things. They have
drained your poor suffering members of
all their little goods. They have reached
into the hovels of the poor and laid their
cupboards bare. And now they plan
more pillage.

0 Carpenter of Nazareth, intercede
for us, for we are hard pressed. Evil
men join house to house and lay field to
field even to the ends of the world.

Where shall your poor dwell in the
midst of the earth? He that hideth up
corn is the first among us, and the
moneychangers need your scourge again.

0 Son of Joseph, all have turned
aside into their own way, everyone after
his own gain, from the first even to the

11



last. From the least even to the greatest
all are given to covetousness, and from
the prophet even to the priest all are

guilty of deceit.

0 Carpenter of Nazareth, we come to
our Intercessor to ask for intercession.

Of old your Father said many things.
We ask that in His mercy He may send
relief to the poor stricken members who
must pick the alleys and the city dumps
for the daily bread that has been

snatched by those who have too much
and scheme to have more.

Your Father has said: Nor thieves,
nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor ralters,

nor extortioners shall possess the king-

dom of God.—(I Cor., 6:10.) Lord, is
^‘kingdom of God^^ said only of heaven?

•

0 Son of Joseph, your Father has
said: He that hideth up corn shall he
cursed among the people; hut a blessing
upon them that sell.—(Proverbs, 11:26.)
0 Carpenter of Nazareth, it was not

in vain that you yourself said: Woe to
you that are rich. For you have your
consolation.—(Luke, 6:24.)
0 Son of Mary, in the name of the

poverty in which you lived because of
capitalism, in the name of the tears you

12



I

I

shed over the capitalism of Jerusalem, in

the name of the sadness that filled your
heart when a certain young man would
not give his capital to the poor, we ask
that you intercede for us.

0 Carpenter of Nazareth, whatever
you ask of the Heavenly Father, that
will He give you. Ask, then, we beg you
with that sweet sense of dependence of

the members on the Head:

That those who create want in the
midst of plenty may see the folly of their
ways.

That those who labor to bring relief
to your poor suffering members may suc-
ceed in their task.

That you give the victory to the poor
and the injured, and cast down the op-
pressors and extortioners into the humil-
ity of penitence.

That thus there may be at last one
Flock and one Shepherd

;
one Body with

one Head in a perfect union of intention
and love with the Blessed Trinity—for-
ever.

13



For Catholic Action

A prayer that all classes may respond to the
call of the Holy Father.

0 God, we ask that you strengthen our
Holy Father in the great work that he
has undertaken. Through Christ Our
Lord.

0 God, we ask that Catholics through-
out the world may respond to his call
for Catholic Action. Through Christ
Our Lord.

0 God, we ask that Catholic men may
give physical and intellectual fighting
instincts to the cause of the Vicar of

Christ. Through Christ Our Lord.

0 God, we ask that Catholic women
may give the tenderness of their beau-
tiful womanhood to the cause of the
Church. Through Christ Our Lord.

0 God, we ask that Catholic bays may
respond to the idealism of His Holiness,

and devote the energies of their grow-
ing manhood to training for Catholic
Action. Through Christ Our Lord.

0 God, we ask that Catholic girls
may devote the sacredness of their
blossoming womanhood to works that
bring down grace to the Mystical Body.
Through Christ Our Lord.

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0 God, we ask that the whole Catholic
world may become conscious of the
Christ-life within them and devote
themselves to interior Catholic Action

in personal holiness. Through Christ
Our Lord.

0 God, we ask that all the Catholics
of the world may be filled with the desire
of giving freely what they have freely
received, in order that by their good
example, by their personal sacrifice and

by their self-consecration the Body of
Christ may be brought to its full stature.
Through Christ Our Lord.

0 God, we ask that the Godless world
may pause, see, and accept the solution
of all its problems that lies in the sub-

lime doctrine of the Mystical Body.

Through Christ Our Lord.

0 God, we ask that this great good
may be accomplished in perfect peace,
harmony and cooperation between the
laity and the hierarchy, as is becoming
to an organization of which all are mem-
bers and Christ is Head. Through Christ
Our Lord. Amen.

15



We Thank You
A prayer of gratitude for our union

with Christ.

0 God, you have sent your Son to
earth to buy us back from darkness

;
and

for this, through Christ:

We thank you.

0 God, through Christ you have made
us one with Christ

;
and for this, through

Christ

:

We thank you.

0 God, you have joined our humility
with that of Jesus in his great mysteries

of self-effacement
;
and for this, through

Christ

:

We thank you.

0 God, you have made our poverty
one with the poverty of the manger and
the innumerable deprivations of the

Savior Jesus; and for this, through
Christ

:

We thank you.

0 God, you have joined our recollec-
tion to that of the Master in the solitude

of the forty days, to that of the three

hours on the cross
;
and for this, through

Christ

:

We thayik you.
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0 God, you have directed the brook
of our zeal for Catholic Action into the

mighty river of devotion to Jesus; and

for this, through Christ:

We thank you,

0 God, you regard every act of a
Christian as an act of Christ; and for
this, through Christ:

We thank you,

0 God, you accept our individual
sufferings to complete the sufferings of

Christ; and for this, through Christ:

We thank you,

0 God, you have given us the Truth,
and the Way, and the Life; and for this,
through Christ:

We thank you.

I

17



For International Peace

A prayer for protection from those who
7i'ould bring on war and for assistance for

those who ivould prevent it.

0 God, you are the Father of all of us.
We are your children by adoption in
Jesus Christ, your Son by birth.

0 God, we ask you, in the name of
Jesus Christ, to keep us from that evil
scourge called war.

0 God, we ask you—we, all the nations
of the world — ask you to preserve us
from the evil designs of wicked men who,
for the sake of their own profit, wish to
draw down upon us the sorrows of war.

0 God, we ask you, the God of peace,
in the name of Jesus Christ, whose greet-
ing was ‘‘Peace,” to convert those
“merchandisers in murder,” as one of
your holy priests called them, and lead
them to a sense of the sonship which is
theirs and the brotherhood which is

ours.

0 God, only you, who know all things,
and your Son, whose Sacred Heart was

so crushed by all these things in the *

agony of Gethsemane, can know the sor-
rows of the past world war.

0 God, only you. Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, can foresee what horrors

18



the next war will bring and what
anguish the Mystical Body of Christ
will be made to endure.

0 God, if the chalice of war may pass
from us, in the name of your son Jesus
Christ let it pass

;
but if it may not pass,

thy will be done.

0 God, pour forth your grace into the
hearts of men that they may see the
futility of the slaughter of war a!hd in
their love for the members of the Mys-
tical Body may rise up in rebellion
against those scheming, heartless -men

whose greed for gold has taken away
their minds.

0 God, pour forth your light into the
minds of nations that all the citizens of
the world may keep the beautiful purity
of a glowing patriotism free from the
defiling hatred that ambitious politicians,

and plotting armorers would smear
upon it.

0 God, show the leaders of the world
ttie folly of crushing the poor with taxes

in order to keep and increase the armies
and navies of the world.

0 God, we beg you, in the name of
Jesus Christ, to bring to an end the evils
which that horrible disruption of Chris-

19



tendom has brought upon us; bring to
an end this adoration of gold, this
oppression of the poor, this abomination

of war.

0 God, through Jesus Christ, your
Son, we beg you to aid the Vicar of
Christ, whose labor of love it is that the
labor of hate may cease.

0 Blessed Trinity, we beg you through
our Mediator and the Head of our Mys-
tical Body the Church to look with
mercy upon an undeserving human race
and to assist those who promote peace
and to hinder those whose interest is
war.

0 Eternal Father, we ask you through
your Son to fill the world with the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of Peace, that His

work of sanctification may go on and
that the Body of Christ may be brought
to its full stature in a development of

harmony and union.

20



For a Catholic Social Order
A prayer that the plans put forth by the

Popes may find accomplishment.

0 God, you are the Father and Master
of all mankind. We your children ask
with and through your Son, our Brother
and our Mediator:

That mankind may come to a con-^
sciousness of the Natural and Divine
Law and submit themselves to it.

That mankind may come to see tlie
family as a true society, with rights and

duties peculiar to itself which are quite

independent of the state.

That mankind may come to see the
true duty of the state to the family

and may resist the dangerous encroach-
ments that the state tends to make upon
the family.

That mankind may see mutual obli-
gations which the common lot of hard-
ship imposes upon them.

That mankind may see values in the^
light of eternity; money in its proper
place, and in poverty no disgrace, virtue:
as man’s true worth.

That Catholic precepts may prevail
and that the respective classes may not
only be united in the bonds,of friend-

ship, but also in those of brotherly love.

21



That mankind may submit to the
agencies which Jesus Christ has given

to the Church to bring men to act from
a motive of duty, to control their pas-

sions and appetites, to love God and
their fellow men with a great and un-
selfish love and to break down coura-
geously every barrier that blocks the

way to virtue.

That mankind may recognize, as
regards the state, the interests of all,

whether high or low, to be equal, and the

end of the state to be the common wel-
fare—to protect particularly the rights
of the poor.

That mankind may come to see its
spiritual interests as its most important

interests and to arrange all material
conditions in a manner that will be con-
ducive to the things of the spirit.

That mankind may put an end to the
oppression of women and children in the
mines and factories of the land, that a
saving wage may be maintained, and the
proper distribution of wealth be man-
aged.

That mankind may come to recognize
the right of association in trade unions,

the value of religious societies, the dan-

ger of evil societies.

22



That your blessing, 0 God, descend
upon those who are striving, by various
undertakings and endeavors, to better
the condition of the working class by
rightful means.

That mankind may see in Catholic
Social Action the exemplar of good

organization, with broad foundations,

that will bring innumerable social bene-

fits to the nations of the world.

0 God, you are the Father and Master
of all mankind. We your children ask,
with and through your Son, our Brother
and Mediator, that you lend a favorable
ear to our petitions and bring men to
realize that charity is patient, is kind,

seeketh not her own . . . suffereth all
things . . . endureth all things.

(A Rerum Novarum” Prayer.)

Imprimi potest:
Samuel Horine, S. J.

Praep. Prov. Missourianae

Nihil obstat:
F. J. Holweck

Censor Librorum

Imprimatur:
HhJoannes ,J. Glennon

Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici

Sti. Ludovici, die 15 Martfi, 1935

Copyright 3935

THE QUEEN’S WORK. Inc.



THE QUEEN’S WORK
3742 West Pine Boulevard

ST. LOUIS, MO.

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