Hymn
O God, as You by Your pure gift
By grace our nature do uplift,
And make it possible to be
What You, God, are essentially.
We pray You then to hear our prayer,
For it is Christ’s, whose life we share;
And since we share Christ’s nature, we
Can pray, like Christ, almightily.
Through Jesus Christ let this be done,
Who lives and reigns, our Lord, Your Son,
Whom with the Spirit we adore,
One God with You forevermore.
Antiphon
P. Therefore I say to you, all things whatever you ask for in prayer, / believe that you shall receive, and they shall come to you.
(Psalm 85:1-10)
All: Incline your ear, O Lord; answer me for I am afflicted and poor.
Keep my life, for I am devoted to you; / save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God; have pity on me, O Lord, / for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant, / for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, / abounding in kindness to all who call upon You,
Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer / and attend to the sound of my pleading.
In the day of my distress I call upon you, / for you will answer me.
There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, / and there are no works like yours.
All the nations you have made shall come and worship you, O Lord, / and glorify your name.
For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds; / you alone are God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, / and to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be / world without end. Amen.
Antiphon
All: Therefore I say to you, all things whatever you ask for in prayer, / believe that you shall receive, and they shall come to you.
P. (Chapter–Philippians 4:47) Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice. Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety, but in every prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God. And may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
R. Thanks be to God.
V. I will sing praise to You in the sight of the angels.
R. I will worship toward Your holy temple, and I will give glory to Your name.
V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with your spirit.
Let us pray.
P. O Lord Jesus Christ, You have said: Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Grant, we beg of You, to us Your supplicants, the gift of Your most divine love, so that we may love You with our whole heart and in all our words and works, and never cease praising You, who live and are King world without end.
R. Amen.
V. St. Isidore.
R. Pray for us.
Prayer in Honor of Saint Isidore
All: O God, who taught Adam the simple art of tilling the soil, / and who through Jesus Christ, the true vine, / revealed Yourself the husbandman of our souls, / deign, we pray, through the merits of blessed Isidore, / to instill into our hearts a horror of sin and a love of prayer, / so that, working the soil in the sweat of our brow, / we may enjoy eternal happiness in heaven, through the same Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.
V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with your spirit.
V. Let us bless the Lord.
R. Thanks be to God.
V. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
R. Amen.
REFLECTION*
A farmer daily sees the handiwork of God in the world of nature about him and recognizes that he is utterly dependent upon God’s bounty for the success of his harvest and deliverance from calamities. It is therefore the most obvious and natural thing for him to call upon the Lord of the harvest to obtain His blessing upon everything he undertakes. Trust in prayer was the most distinguishing trait in the life of St. Isidore. It was his custom to rise before dawn and spend the early part of the day making visits to churches in and about Madrid. The story is told that his employer, Master de Vargas, became disturbed about the amount of time St. Isidore was taking from his work, and decided to see for himself if reports which had come to him were as bad as they sounded. One morning he hid himself in the field where the saint was supposed to be plowing. When the saint returned even later than usual from his morning pilgrimage, the other workers had finished their jobs and had left the field, while St. Isidore’s work was still untouched. Master de Vargas was about to rebuke the saint, but something told him to wait and see what would happen. The saint set to work and seemed to be making a great deal of progress. As the employer watched, he saw the reason: two angels were working side by side with the saint, each guiding a plow and racing in holy rivalry to see who could get the most done. After that whenever anyone asked the Master de Vargas about St. Isidore’s work, he would answer simply, “Angels are his helpers.”
While rural people will follow St. Isidore’s example of combining prayer with work, their religious life in general will be centered about the rural parish. The parish church is the center of life’s important moments — baptism, confirmation, penance, marriage and, above all, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion. The cemetery recalls the labors of the pioneers who went before, and the catechism classroom is the place of training future workers for Christ.
Father of all, the rural pastor has been called “God’s sacred gift to mankind sent by divine appointment on a mission whose field is not a given parish or diocese, but the world; whose end is the glory of God and the salvation of souls everywhere; whose means are the sacraments and the preaching of the Gospel; the object of whose teaching is everything knowable, from the deep things in God to all things outside of God.”
* Most Reverend William A. Griffin
Recite the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be (etc.) three times, followed by a prayer of your choice for special needs.
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