Prayer of Venerable John Paul II to Our Lady of Guadelupe during his First Foreign trip outside of Rome as Pope

Photo ©  Speramus-We Hope 

Altogether 27 popes have officially honored Our Lady of Guadalupe 

St. John Paul II visited her Sanctuary four
times: on his first apostolic trip  outside Rome as Pope in 1979. Then again in 1990, 1999, 2002.

      

During his third pastoral visit to the shrine in 1999  in his homily at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, he declared the date of December 12th the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a Liturgical Holy Day for the whole continent of America.

During this same visit he entrusted the cause of life to her loving protection

Placing under her motherly care the innocent lives of children, especially those who are in danger of not being born.

Prayer of St. John Paul II
To Our Lady of Guadalupe
Mexico, January 1979

O Immaculate Virgin, Mother of the true God and Mother of the Church! who from this place reveal your clemency and your pity to all those who ask for your protection, hear the prayer that we address to you with filial trust, and present it to your Son Jesus, our sole Redeemer.

Mother of Mercy, Teacher of hidden and silent sacrifice, to you, who come to meet us sinners, we dedicate on this day all our being and all our love. We also dedicate to you our life, our work, our joys, our infirmities and our sorrows. Grant peace, justice and prosperity to our peoples; for we entrust to your care all that we have and all that we are, our Lady and Mother. We wish to be entirely yours and to walk with you along the way of complete faithfulness to Jesus Christ in His Church; hold us with your loving hand.

Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, we pray to you for all the Bishops, that they may lead the faithful along paths of intense Christian life, of love and humble service of God and souls. Contemplate this immense harvest, and intercede with the Lord that He may instill a hunger for holiness in the whole people of God, and grant abundant vocations of priests and religious, strong in the faith and zealous dispensers of God’s mysteries. 

Grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the life of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin Mary, protect our families, so that they may always be united, and bless the upbringing of our children.

Our hope, look upon us with compassion, teach us to go continually to Jesus and, if we fall, help us to rise again, to return to Him, by means of the confession of our faults and sins in the Sacrament of Penance, which gives peace to the soul.                                                                

We beg you to grant us a great love for all the holy Sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that your Son left us on earth.

Thus,  Most Holy Mother, with the peace of God in our conscience, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to bring to all true joy and true peace, which come to us from your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

The Popes and Our Lady of Guadelupe  http://www.sancta.org/olg-popes.html