The saints have long been a special love of mine. It’s just SO COOL to have a group of heroes and mentors and real-life people who are already in heaven. They weren’t perfect, either. They were a colorful, often crusty bunch.
As I’ve been reflecting on the importance of praying for others, I realized that I’m not tapping into this heavenly crew nearly enough.
I’ll send a shout-out to a favorite patron here or there, but am I doing it with any regularity? Nope.
In the last few weeks, I’ve composed a personalized litany. I looked up all the former patron saints I’ve had from previous years and included my patron saint, my children’s patrons, and saints who have become special to me over the years. Because I have a special devotion to about 100 different titles of Mary, I alternated the saints with titles of Mary.
After each name, I pray, “pray for us,” thinking of all the intentions and family members and close friends and perfect strangers who so need divine intervention and the graces of God.
The final litany has become one of my favorite parts of my morning prayer time. I generally pray it before I pray for my list of intentions, so it feels like I’m tapping into a whole group of pray-ers. As I drink my coffee and invoke my heavenly friends, I really feel the reality of the Communion of Saints.
Oh! I just love your idea and I intend to do it, too! Thank you for sharing it.
What a wonderful idea! I will have to take time today to write down all the Saints in my life and make my own Personalized Litany. 🙂
I often wish I could get my parish choir to record my own Litany of Saints for me. I often find myself humming it, and always looking forward to Easter and All Saints Day so I can hear it again.
Love it. I have done several such litanies for different situations. My regular one is like yours, a list of family patrons and favorites.
For years I’ve improvised a litany of our favorite saints as a lullaby for my kids; but I’ve never thought to write it down. I love the idea of alternating saints with titles of Mary.
And while we’re on the subject of the litany of the saints, I have a story I just had to share. Yesterday I was in a major funk after the baby wouldn’t go down for his nap and my dinner plan fell through and my husband called to tell me he was working late. So I went out in the back yard to work out my bad mood by throwing things at the fence (I know! But it’s better than yelling at the kids or throwing things in the house, right?) So when I came in my five year old was praying her own version of a litany to her favorite saints: “St Therese, help Mama; St Rose, help Mama; St Michael, help Mama…” etc. It was so sweet my heart melted and I grabbed her and hugged her and kissed her and my bad mood melted away. She told me when she couldn’t think of any more names she started going around the house looking for pictures of saints to remind her of other ones to pray to. So we spent more time thinking of more saints. I’m so glad I’ve got little ones to pray for me when I’m so gone it doesn’t even occur to me to pray.
Excellent idea!
Okay, so I love (no: LOOOOOOOOVE) this idea and plan to shamelessly steal it for my own prayer time. Thank you! SO much!
Ditto! A great idea. Thanks for the inspiration!