April: The Work of Volunteers

The St. Anthony Prayer Society would like to focus the Lord’s graces through dedicated moments of focused prayer.

Serving line at Marian House Soup Kitchen

April is the month where we celebrate volunteers with organizations around the country. For 50 years, Catholic Charities volunteers have animated the mission of Christian service for the vulnerable in our area. Today, 3,000 volunteers per year dedicate 93,000 hours to this same mission every year. We give special thanks to those people who give life, personality and warmth to the work of the organization, and who operationalize much of its programming. May we give thanks in prayer to the many hands and feet of the people who enable this work to take flesh.

Falling entirely during the liturgical season of Easter, April in 2018 is a time we celebrate the everlasting life of Christ and the way in which it undergirds the ministry of Catholic Charities. There is much to celebrate about our growth as an organization and the blessings which have been bestowed upon us and the people we serve. May we pray to keep Christ’s love alive in everything that we do and everything that we are every day.

“Christ has no body now but yours, No hands but yours, No feet but yours.

Yours – are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion must look out on

the world. Yours are his feet with which He is to go about doing good.

Yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”

St. Teresa of Avila

Let Us Pray Together:

Lord God,

During this season of Easter, we give you thanks and praise for the gift of Christ’s living presence in our lives. We celebrate the ability to remain connected to your one body through this redeeming season of repair and restoration. May we be renewed and rejuvenated in the way that only you can realize, and unveil in us a new and better way of serving you through our work on Earth.

We pray these blessings be bestowed especially upon the volunteers who work with Catholic Charities, that they may meet every success in walking with the organization in a way that is pleasing to you. We ask for protection and renewal for the volunteers who encounter the most vulnerable in our city.

May you grant them eyes to see your image in those they serve, ears to hear your voice there too, and hearts to work for justice for all brothers and sisters who come to us for strength.

In Jesus name, Amen