Praying for and with Pope Francis

As part of my duties as a deacon at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, I prepare the petitions for the Universal Prayer on Sunday and other occasions. This evening the Archbishop will celebrate Mass for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis, and I have written the petitions below in an attempt to reflect the emphases and phrases that characterized Francis’s papacy (the style is a bit more prolix than usual for me, but Francis was a bit more prolix than I am). The concluding prayer is taken from the prayer Francis penned for the Jubilee Year.

I offer them in hopes that others might find them useful in their prayer for Pope Francis. Feel free to borrow and adapt.

Celebrant:
As we join in prayer for the repose of the soul
of our Holy Father Francis,
let us remember especially
those people and things
that were close to his heart.

For the Church,
called by God to be the field hospital
in which wounded souls find healing,
let us pray to the Lord

For the growth in our Church and our world
of a culture of encounter,
rejecting the globalized indifference
that comes from disillusionment
and a withdrawal into private interests,
let us pray to the Lord.

For political leaders who will care
for those on the margins
and resist the throwaway culture
that threatens the unborn and the elderly,
the weak and the helpless,
let us pray to the Lord.

For hearts that are open
in listening and responding
to the cry of the Earth,
our common home,
and the cry of the poor,
who bear the image of Christ
who became poor for our sake,
let us pray to the Lord.

For migrants and refugees,
that we might always remember
that they are faces, not numbers:
people who cannot simply be categorized,
but need to be embraced,
let us pray to the Lord.

For Pope Francis,
who proclaimed the joy of the Gospel,
that the merciful Lord may accompany him
to our heavenly homeland,
let us pray to the Lord.

Celebrant:
Father in heaven,
may the faith you have given us
in your Son, Jesus Christ, our brother,
and the flame of charity enkindled
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
reawaken in us the blessed hope
for the coming of your Kingdom,
through Christ Our Lord.
Amen.