AN OLD FRENCH PRAYER FOR FRIENDS

Blessed Mother of those whose names you can read in my heart, watch over them with every care.

Make their way easy and their labors fruitful.

Dry their tears if they weep; sanctify their joys; raise their courage if they weaken; restore their hope if they lose heart, their health if they be ill, truth if they err, and repentance if they fall.

Amen.

Trivia for the Day:

France is called the “Eldest Daughter of the Church” and has a rich Christian history that reaches back into the early centuries of the Church. After the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, it was the first of the emerging countries to be identified as Christian. January 3 (besides being the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, my parish’s name) is also the feast day of Saint Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, who lived from 419 to 512, a courageous Catholic woman, about 1,000 years before God called Saint Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans.

Saint Genevieve & Me

I have a special love for Saint Genevieve. Looking back, God must have planted the seed for it in high school as in 1984 our English teacher showed us the 1967 musical Camelot (with Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Harris and Franco Nero) and “Saint Genevieve” is the first song we hear Guinevere sing as she prays to her patron to spare her this arranged marriage with the king of Britain Arthur. One of the best things that came out of that love affair with Camelot was that my mother got tickets to see Richard Harris at the Victory Theatre in Dayton in a tour of the Broadway version of Camelot and looking back, that was a true fangirling moment to be a few rows back from the stage enthralled by Mr. Harris long before he transformed into the best version of Dumbledore in my humble opinion.

In one of life’s “God-incidences” (a term I learned from a Cincinnati priest, Father Jim Willig, as he courageously battled cancer before passing in June of 2001) in the year 2005 a long-haired white cat showed up and made her home with us and being in love with France at the time (my character Cathleen in the ever-evolving search for the right story was married to a French archaeologist), we named the cat Genevieve. And in 2015, my “sweet Genevieve” passed away on January 3. In my grief I had forgotten it was Saint Genevieve’s feast day until chatting on Facebook with Tracey, one of my best friends and sisters in Christ, messaged to tell me her husband was reading his missal–another God-incidence. Which leads to God’s precious gift of friendship and today’s prayer selection.

An Old French Prayer for Friends

This morning I had a completely different prayer in mind before I realized it would be late when I got to this post and settled on this prayer I found in my poor battered Catholic Prayer Book and equally weathered Manual of Prayers. I probably landed on this prayer back in those “Franco-phile” days (and attempts to learn to pray in French for a character with a French husband). I don’t have an original French version only this lovely English one.

Prayers like this are great to say for one’s personal compline (prayers said before bedtime) devotions and I hope to explore more of them as I continue the meditations. Once again we have a prayer that calls upon our Blessed Mother to pray with us for our friends.

“Blessed Mother, of those whose names you can read in my heart” is a great reminder that if you get worried you forgot someone, God and His Angels and Saints in Heaven can read those names written in our heart.

“Watch over them with every care,” as when we are blessed with the people God brings into our lives we wish only good for them and their protection in this crazy world as we add, “Make their way easy and their labors fruitful.”

Then like a good prayer for bedtime it covers everyone we care about: “Dry their tears if they weep; sanctify their joys; raise their courage if they weaken; restore their hope if they lose heart, their health if they be ill, truth if they err, and repentance if they fall.”

TODAY’S PRAYER MISSION

Whether you choose the Old French Prayer for Friends or your own words, before you go to bed, get in the habit of praying for those you love, especially if you have a friend for whom it seems trouble is pouring in from all sides and that friend cannot catch a break.