The Catholic Defender: Blessed Michael McGivney Novena Day 2 – Ordained ‘A Man for Others’

I will raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them;and they will not be aaid any longer, nor be terri- fieded, nor will any be missing. (Jer 23:4)

Intention:

For vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life.

Virtue: Courage to respond to God’s call. Young Michael’s desire to be “a man for others” was recognized by his pastor, who encouraged him to enter the seminary at age 16.

Yet Michael’s path to the priesthood was neither smooth nor direct. Aer gaining his father’s permission to leave his work in a Waterbury factory, Michael traveled far, to Canada and upstate New York, to receive the proper education and spiritual formation.

After his father died, Michael would have been forced to stay home to support the family if not for a scholarship supplied by the bishop of Hartford to continue studies at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.

He was ordained Dec. 22, 1877, in America’s first cathedral, and returned to Waterbury to celebrate his first public Mass for Christmas, with his widowed mother and siblings attending.

Assigned to St. Mary’s Church, the rst Catholic parish in New Haven, he served a large, mostly immigrant population and worked without a single day o for more than a year,

filling in for an ailing pastor. Father McGivney’s experience shows that vocations are discerned and nurtured in a family, encouraged by spiritual advisors, supported by prayer, and tested by adversity. With this example in mind, let us beseech the Lord anew “to send out workers into his harvest” (Mt 9:37-38).

Petitions

For an increase of vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life, that many more men and women may respond to God’s call to serve his people.

Grant our prayer, Lord, through the intercession of Blessed Michael McGivney.

For a greater collaboration between clergy and laity, that Father McGivney’s example of helping laypeople to understand and live their vocation to holiness may serve as a model for the Church today.

Grant our prayer, Lord, through the intercession of Blessed Michael McGivney