Prayers for Andrew Greeley
Thursday November 13, 2008
The Chicago priest, novelist, sociologist, newspaper columnist, friend of importunate Catholic writers like me and many others, remains in critical but stable condition at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Father Greeley fell and fractured his skull last Friday...
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David Gibson is an award-winning religion writer who specializes in writing about the Catholic Church, which he joined as a convert at the age of 30. He is the author The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World. He also wrote The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism. He has written about Catholicism for leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Boston magazine, Fortune, Commonweal, and America. Gibson worked in Rome for Vatican Radio for several years and traveled frequently with Pope John Paul II. He later covered religion for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey. He has co-written several recent documentaries on Christianity for CNN. For further information check out his website at dgibson.com.Search This Blog
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In his journals Father Greeley addresses his prayers to "My Love." May that Love cradle, protect, and heal him.
Dear Lord, be with your servant Andrew now and every day you allow him to be with us. Please bless him and keep him close to you so that he may continue to reflect your light upon us.
In Jesus's name I pray.
Amen
Please Dear Lord, help this man, your devoted servant. It is not time for his light to go out of this world. He reaches out and touches so many lives with the teachings you handed down to us. We need him a great while longer in this very troubled world. Amen
Loving God, bring healing and peace to Andy. We still need his voice and presence in our mixed up Church and world.
My prayers & blessings. As said in one of the numerous articles - Father Andrew Greeley is tough and a fighter - we need him! God Bless
Mother and Father God of us all. We are all in your hands and we ask your loving care for our brother Andy. You will be done.
Merciful God, please hold Fr. Andy in your loving care, relieve him of any pain or suffering, and keep him well. We are so grateful for his presence in our lives, and for his good work that has brought us closer to you. May your will be done.
Our prayers are with the Irish American priest. He has taught me not to judge the Church contect because of the arrogance of its leaders.
May God bless this great man. You are a fighter!!!
Father Greeley,
Thank you again for helping this struggling researcher via your mail box when I was at NYU in the 80s. My friends laughed when I wrote you. You responded not once but twice!
Thank you for all of the laughter, love and light you have brought to our world. It is a grace to share the same decades with you.
My love and prayers,
Rita Cotterly, Ph.D. (thanks to you)
Fort Worth, TX
Merciful Mother/Father:
Please strengthen and heal your servant, Andy Greeley, if it is your will. We still need his hopeful stories of
your implacable love for us, his parables of your grace in our lives. He has always dared to tell the truth, and is light in our darkness.
"You can lock up the bold men
Go and lock up your bold men
And hold men in tow,
You can stifle all adventure
For a century or so.
Smother hope before it's risen
Watch it wizen like a gourd,
But you cannot imprison
The Word of the Lord."
-- Stephen Schwartz (Mass, Bernstein, Schwartz)
Father Andy is truly one of those bold men. As one of his characters would surely say. Indeed!
Wayne Spiceland
Memphis
Wishing the Father a speedy recovery.
God Bless Fr. Greeley and the men and women who are taking care of him, his biological family, his church family, and the family of those who enjoy his writing.
Mother/Father/Friend,
Please, hear our prayer and take care of Your friend Andy, a true Vatican II priest, who more powerfully than anyone else over more than this past half century has used his multiple voices to battle windmills, challenge Church leadership, oppose Catholic Jansenism, and spread the light of Your unconditional, passionate, Hound-of-Heaven, HCE Love throughout the world in his stories. And please, protect all those who love him, and are suffering with him. Ingrid (again)
Dear God,
Please heal your faithful servant, Father Greeley. The Catholic laity need his voice.
My Love,
Please take care of dearly loved Father Andrew Greeley. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have half the nerve in addressing You as I do. I wouldn't have been blessed to learn about Your unquenchable love for each and every one of us. I wouldn't be the same Irish/Spanish woman with half the wit I have now if some... okay, a LOT of Andrew Greeley hadn't rubbed off on me! I know Your time isn't necessarily our time and if You want to bring him home You shall. But we would miss him a lot. We'd miss his fire, his passion, his Irish wit, and his love. Please, God, whatever You do, take good care of him and his family. And, while You're at it, take care of us, too.
Lord, you always have the last word. But I make an appeal that Andrew not be taken from us, just yet. He has brought you closer to countless numbers of people. He has enabled lapsed Catholics to rediscover the warmth and majesty of the church. He has been a storyteller whose stories capture the essence of what it means to be a human being within your loving grace. Please let him continue his ministry and work, with us as well as with you. There are still more stories to tell, more doors of people's hearts to open, more vision for the church to be encouraged, and more love--that Andrew seems uniquely qualified to make possible. I am sure, Lord, that you never, ever underestimate the Irish. Respectfully, Lord, be merciful to Andrew, and offer him comfort, strength, and I appeal to you, a recovery.
PAX CHRISTI!
A prayer-full Cinquain for Fr. Andrew Greeley's recovery.
ABBA!
Blessings bestow
On Father Greeley now. . .
Healing of mind and heart and soul --
New Life!
Many thanks, Lord, for the improving health of Andrew Greeley. Lord, with all due respect, did you find both joy and amusement that Andrew was treated and cared for at a Lutheran hospital? I look forward to Andrew's future musings about that! I know you are with him and I know that your love is without end. Yet, again, I ask that you help Andrew get well so we can continue to enjoy his voice and ministry. We need more like him Lord, with all due respect, awe, etc. The world seems consumed by bitterness, division, hatred. Nothing new. Yet show us the way you wish us to go as human beings who seek the love of God and the love of neighbor--without limiting our love to only "our kind." Help us to see beyond our narrowness; to see with your eyes. Amen.
My prayer is that God will grant Father Greeley a speedy recovery so that he can continue his Mission of bringing people to God through Love and cheer, by the sheer power of his written word and vibrant personality. Blackie would bounce back and pursue his work, better than ever, so please God, grant the same blessing to his joyful author. My prayers are with you always. Looking forward to you nest effort toward the love of God. Love and prayers,
Joanne Ciarlo, Wyckoff, N.J.
O Lord, please look kindly upon your servant Andrew and grant him full restoration of health. Thanks be to you O God and to Andy who has allowed you to work through him. Please let his family feel your love and care in a very tangible way at this time. AMEN
Dear G_D,
For You and thru You, all things are possible!
Please grant Father Greeley a full and speedy recovery!
You are Love itself!
Forever more, Your blessing continues!
And continues!
Amen.
My daily prayers are with Fr. Greeley. I have been reading his columns and books since I was a teenager. I have at least 50 of his books,both fiction and non-fictions.
May the Good Lord bless and keep you, Father, make his face to shine upon you and continue being very, very good to you and grant you his healing peace. Fr. Greeley has been a guiding light for so many of us in the Catholic Church as it has moved into the present. You have kept my faith alive, Father.
May God grant Father Greeley a speedy recovery. He has been such a guiding light for us as well as a splendid author. I have read his books for many years.
Heavenly Father,we pray for our brother Andrew. Grant that he who has used so well the gifts with which you have blessed him may remain with us yet a while longer. Ease his pain, cure his ills and let him once again teach us of Your passionate love for us in the words of Bishop Blackie and his crazy Irish family. Lord, Father Greeley is a treasure, a light to many of us in a time of confusion and darkness. We beg you not to take him away. Not our will but Thine be done. I pray in the name of Your Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ and in the name of his holy mother, the Immaculate Virgin Mary. Amen.
I just learned of Father Greeley's injury. Prayers for a complete recovery begin right now!
I have already communicted my concerns to the Greely family but wanted to add an extra prayer for the well being and safe recovery for Father Greeley. We all need him and his wonderful words. I pray he has the strength of the Irish -and I KNOW he can find that - to over ome this horrible setback!
Please recover.....
'Tis a good thing himself hurt his head, arguably the most indestructable part of an Irishman. Get well soon Father. We need you.
Andy,
Praying on BOTH knees for your total recover.
Wonder why bad things happen to good people?
Get well so you can watch the Inaugural with
the rest of the Hopeful.
Will give Barry your best when we see him
in Kenya in February.
Love,
Rita, CSJ
Dear Father Greeley,
My husband and I just now found out about your fall and injury - we will both be storming heaven with prayers for your complete recovery.
We hope you will be able to watch and rejoice with us on Tuesday, as Barak Obama takes his oath of office.
Thank you for the Blessing you have been in our lives.
Judi and Frank Hays
Heavenly Father, please bring Fr. Greeley through this experience, with a quick and thorough healing.
Get well soon Father...God and the Lady need you to still be here for us...you are in my prayers.
My thoughts and prayers are with the wonderful Father Greeley. I've been reading his insightful books for years, and think he's the best writer whose works I've ever had the privilege to read. May the lord expedite his speedy recovery! And my best to all of you in his family who are caring for him.
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