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Monday, March 18, 2024

Overnight vigil to pray for priests

Catholics from across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are invited to a first-ever ’round-the-clock time of prayer June 11-12 for healing and renewal within the archdiocese and the sanctification of clergy.

The Prayer Vigil of Reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus will open with vespers at the Cathedral of St. Paul at 7 p.m. June 11, followed by adoration throughout the night and next day. The vigil will conclude with Mass at 8 p.m. June 12, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Archbishop John Nienstedt will preside.

During the overnight hours of June 11-12, adoration will take place in the Cana Chapel of the cathedral and will continue throughout the day June 12 in the main body of the church.

June is for the Sacred HeartIn Catholic tradition, June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Devotion to the Sacred Heart dates to the medieval Church, but grew after St. Margaret Mary Alacoque received personal revelations related to it in the 1670s.

Susan Steadman of St. Anne in Hamel conceived the idea for the vigil, which she said came to her in prayer four years ago.

“It’s been on my heart since 2011,” she said. “It had nothing to do with the clergy abuse crisis.”

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But in light of allegations of child sexual abuse against priests in the archdiocese, she said a prayer vigil for the sanctification of priests seems “fortuitous” and “part of God’s plan all along to renew us and strengthen us in our faith.”

Steadman, an artist and teacher who in the past has served with the St. Paul Seminary’s Women’s Auxiliary, brought the vigil idea forward with the support of Father Joseph Bambenek, pastor of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, and Father Steven Hoffman, pastor of St. Peter in Mendota.

Father John Paul Erickson, director of the Office for Worship, said he hopes it becomes an annual event around the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“We gather together as one in faith, hope and love with humble and contrite hearts before the heart of Jesus,” he said, “asking him to make us holy and to give us priests after his own heart.”

 


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