Profiles in Catholicism
- Sep 23, 2021
- 22 min read

Legionaries of Christ

Updated: Oct 4, 2021

A Message from the Editor

As we continue to profile members of religious orders, this month we have interview of members on the Legionnaires of Christ. While many of the large religious orders were organized in the middle ages, the Legionnaires of Christ was founded in 1959

A Quote to Remember

'One of the important spiritual traits of your service in the Church is your commitment to the spirit of authentic evangelical charity. At the Last Supper the Lord stated clearly and for all time that fraternal love would be the distinctive feature of his followers: "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13: 35). It has been your desire to take up this evangelical challenge, placing particular emphasis on the fraternal warmth of your interpersonal relations, and furthering the spirit of charity in thought and word, passing over in silence the errors of others and bringing up only those deeds of theirs which are positive and helpful. May the Lord preserve you in this spirit, helping you to bear witness in every way to that Christian charity which St Paul so masterfully described in the famous hymn to love found in his First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13: 4-8)."

by Pope Francis

Special Prayer

Prayer for Covid patients

I your Lord stand with you.

I stand with you says the Lord,

I will be at your side it times of trouble.

When you call for help. I am there.

When feeling loneliness

I am there to be your friend.

I will hold you up if you are falling down.

When your friends show you love I am there,

they make me present.

I will carry you through the dark,

I will be your light to guide and give you strength.

Trust me and together we will overcome.

Your life of goodness will carry you to me.

You have been with me when you helped the needy.

You were a friend to the friendless,

You made me present to those in sorrow,

You shared my friendship in kindness to others.

You were a support to those in sorrow.

Your weakness and failings are forgiven and forgotten.

Let your heart be strong for goodness and

Love is with you. I your Lord and friend am with you always.

by Father Shay Cullen

A Prayer for the NorthMacedonian Hospital Fire Victims

Lord we pray for North Macedonia and the horror of the fire they had in that region. The fire broke out at a field hospital that held 26 patients in the western town of Tetovo, destroying the entire facility within minutes. The blaze killed 14 people and injured 12 others. We pray for those infected by the COVID-19 and pray that their families will be able to offer care, concern and compassion for each other. You are always there for us, Lord, help us to keep those killed as well as the living part of their family in our prayers. by Eileen Quinn Knight, Ph.D. Profiles in Catholicism

A Prayer for Azim Jones-Fearon

Dear Lord.

Hold this child close you at all time so that your eternal and infinite love may erase the pain that he suffered doting his brief lifetime. by Sarah Lyon Profiles in Catholicism

Prayer for migrants and refugees

There are many refugees, migrants, overseas workers exploited, abused, treated as slaves around the world Lord. You and your parents were refugees in Egypt, inspire your followers to speak out for the migrants and refugees and demand their human rights, may we do all we can to help them. Inspire us to help strangers in need. Amen

by Father Shay Cullen Profiles in Catholicism

Prayers for Yummy Sandifer, Dantrell Davis, Ryan Harris, Eric Morse, Derrion Albert, Blair Holt, Jonylah Watkins, and the hundreds of other children murdered and whom continue to be murdered in Chicago

God, we pray for those who have been murdered on the streets of our city. We commit to your loving care those who have died, beseeching you to receive their souls into the mercy of your love. Comfort their loved ones who mourn. Enable them to meet the lonely and painful days ahead in the strength of your love. Let the love that you have made known to us lead us to create safer streets for all to walk upon. Amen by Vienna Cobb Anderson

Prayer for those who died, were injured, and who suffered loss from Hurricane Ida

“Let No One Be Lost” (cf. 2 Peter 3: 9)

Lord, you call us to ponder your power and might before the dawn; and, indeed, you often arose early ‘and went out to a lonely place’ to pray (Mk 1: 35), to teach us to contemplate the mystery of creation,

The great and awesome beauty of the sky, colouring space with angel wings spread wide, feathered across the blue, huge ascents, bright as snow, sunset trails of yolk orange, spilling out of the evening hues.

But when, Lord, your creations roars, as if tyring to rip free of all its restraints, the devastation rises, like the sea that swamps the land and demolishes buildings, whether homes or businesses, sweeping away

Cars and debris, taking our lives like uprooted grass (cf. Ps. 103: 15), uprooted and trashed in the frightening blasts of wind and rain, tearing at everything standing, loosening what will be flung far and furiously.

Is it not enough that we war with one another, that people die alone, others weeded out and that we manufacture the contraceptive poisons that despoil the fertility of the seas and dimmish the power of seed?

Lord, are you asleep? (cf. Mt 8: 24). Or do we need awaking from our slumbering lives, remembering that we are here but a short while and passing away, all the time, into eternity: a forever place unlike now.

We think to tame the nuclear powers of the atom, to combine hydrogen, to speed ever faster across the earth, and we plan to colonize Mars, undermine the stability of countries and yet we perish.

What cars we build, Lord, like bulldozers, what fences, like castle walls, protecting ourselves from those, clamouring for their share of the wealth, of our time, of the gifts meant for all but fenced off.

How many make the meals that feed others or go out on the streets to shave, help and clothe the stranded on the pavements of our cities, in comparison to those who buy and dump the rubbish on our beaches?

Can we hide from death, freeze ourselves and others indefinitely, as if life itself is simply ours and not a gift to give back, with profit, to the one who gives so generously, prodigiously, so hopefully?

Lord, let us awake and help while we can the many fallen, and look upon the mystery of your love and come to the aid of others, known or unknown, seeing that your power is perfected in our weakness (cf. 2 Cor 12: 9).

Mary, Mother of the Lord, accompany us like you accompanied your Son to the cross, that we, too, might burst our dreams of self-importance and live in view of an eternal destiny begun together!

Oh St. Joseph, let us not lie idle in the hours of the day, that we may be found at work in the forging of love, beating it out in the heat of the day as we struggle with the devastation that calls us into action.

Oh all you angels and saints, search and search again, let no one die without your help, gathering us like a harvest, letting no one go unprepared to meet the Creator of all who wants no one to be lost

(cf. 2 Peter 3: 9).

Therefore, Lord, show your great power by showing mercy to us all!

by Francis Etheredge, author of Within Reach of You: A Book of Prose and Prayers and The ABCQ of Conception – both forthcoming from En Route Books and Media.

Legionnaires of Christ Interviews