A prayer for nuns

Religious life is not an easy decision to make nor an easy life. Saying "yes" to God's invitation to serve Him as a religious does not make one a saint instantaneously. Each one has her struggles and battles, her faults, bad habits, and weaknesses to work with - and hopefully improve. So please rember to pray for all religious, the faithful ones, and the ones gone astray; the traditional ones, and the liberal ones. All of us need the prayerful support of the faithful. Consider this prayer:

"Almighty and Eternal God, look upon the Mother of Thy Son, Co-Redemptrix of the human race, and for love of her have pity on Thy consecrated nuns. They are bound to Thee by the golden chains of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In spite of their good will and generosity, they are human, weak, and frail. Take, therefore, their womanhood, purify it, ennoble it, transform it by Thy Grace. Give them Thy courage to rise above all pettiness. Give them Thy tenderness to melt all selfish coldness; pierce them with Thy honesty – that they may know themselves – that they may know Thee. Give them, O God, fidelity and sincerity. Make them love the real and detest the sham. Make them love to be little, humble, poor. Keep them always in Thy Holy Presence. Stir up in them the grace of their holy vocation. Teach them to shut out the world, to cling to Thee, to divest self of self. Give them, O God, Thyself for their Spouse, their King, their Life."

Prayer composed by Archbishop Richard Cushing