Today we pray for an increase in the virtue of Hope for [insert names]. This virtue is the confidence that our True Home awaits us in Heaven, with Jesus and the saints. Hope enables us to persevere in good works throughout our lives.
Two saints who exemplify this virtue are Our Lady of
Guadalupe and Pope Saint John Paul II.
In 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to a native American peasant,
Juan Diego. Her appearance led to the
conversion of the natives, and her miraculous image continues to give hope to
the people of Mexico and all over the world. Our lady is also invoked under this title for
the protection of the unborn.
Pope Saint John Paul II had a great devotion to the Blessed
Mother. He wrote the Theology of the
Body, which is important for marriages because it teaches that there is a
profound interconnection between sexuality and the true destiny of the human
person.
In January 1979, Pope John Paul II visited the Basilica of
Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is part of
the prayer he prayed there:
“Grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life
in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the
life of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin
Mary, protect our families, so that they may always be united, and bless the upbringing
of our children. Our hope, look upon us
with compassion, teach us to go continually to Jesus and, if we fall, help us
to rise again, to return to Him, by means of the confession of our faults and
sins in the Sacrament of Penance, which gives peace to the soul. We beg you to grant us a great love for all
the holy Sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that your Son left us on
earth. Thus, Most Holy Mother, with the
peace of God in our conscience, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we
will be able to bring to all true joy and true peace, which come to us from
your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit,
lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”
Dear Lord, today we ask you, through the intercession of Our
Lady of Guadalupe and Pope Saint John Paul II, to increase in [insert names] the
virtue of hope, so that they will look to Jesus in times of happiness and
sorrow; that He will be the motivation of their hearts and hope of greater
things to come. Amen
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