A Prayer of Thanksgiving after Recieving the Eucharist

For a while now, I've been experimenting with the text of a prayer that I came up with one day during daily Mass. I know that this is simpler than and less than other prayers designated for after receiving the Eucharist. However, if you like it and/or it benefits you in some way, shape, or form, I am happy to be of service to you in this manner:

I give thanks to thee, O Lord, for thou hast blessed me with many gifts from thy bounty, but most of all, thou hast given me the gift of the body and blood, soul and divinity, of thine own dearly beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that I have received this great gift, O Lord, I humbly pray that you keep me safe from the evil one and I submit to you,  so that you may use me to accomplish thy will in the world today, and may the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ lead me to eternal life.

     Amen.

Again, this is something I came up with myself one day and gradually fine-tuned it until I released it for public use now. If you know of any way to, perhaps, "improve" this prayer, or to share your own prayers you might have come up with, please share them in the comment box below. If you have any other comments on this, I welcome them in the comment box below as well.
You can also find me on twitter (twitter username is @rctechgeek). Feel free to subscribe to my rss feed as well. I am now on Tumblr now as well (link to Tumblr is http://www.tumblr.com/blog/catholictechgeek), so please follow me on Tumblr too.

I am also working on a "prayer reminder app" for Windows Phone. This app is designed with Catholics in mind, but any Christian (not just Catholics) can use this app. More details will be coming in further blog posts.

If you are in a state of prayer (excluding fasting) and are feeling thirsty, drink some tasty Mystic Monk Coffee (use this link or click on the picture below to access the store and purchase). Trust me, it's good coffee (in most instances, much better than Starbucks coffee) and you won't regret buying some (just keep it away from your computer keyboard or laptop/tablet). For the summer, they are also offering Iced Coffee as well. If you like tea more than coffee, they also offer tea. Using the link (or picture below) to buy the coffee (or tea) helps the monks out and helps me with college expenses as well.

Feel free to try out my apps for Windows Phone: Mobile Media Manager, a media player app I made which has some features which (I feel) are missing from the system Zune player, and BSA Eagle Tracker, an app that boy scouts can use to track their progress to Eagle Scout (when the scout handbook isn't always handy). New versions of the media player with new features/bug fixes is coming within a week (most likely sooner than this, but definitely within 2 weeks) of passing Microsoft Apphub certification. BSA Eagle Tracker is also getting a bug fix for an obscure bug I noticed recently.

BSA Eagle Tracker download: http://bit.ly/Mm1Upo
Mobile Media Manager (paid version) download: http://bit.ly/y3rf6V
Mobile Media Manager (free version) download: http://bit.ly/xGCsWE

Back to School: Simple Things to Enrich the Prayer Life of Catholic Students

Well, it's about that time of year again. The time where the freedom of summer fades away and the shackles of school are once again bound to children. This being said, this is a great time to think about things you can do to nurture your prayer and sacramental life. Here, I provide a short list

• Pray Daily
    I can't emphasize this one enough. If you don't take time out of your busy schedule for the day to pray, it is like telling God that you don't want to nurture and strengthen the relationship between you and him. Any time used for prayer works certainly does not go to waste.
• Attend Daily Mass
    Receiving our Lord in the Eucharist (if you haven't committed a mortal sin) every Sunday is certainly good. However, we should try to receive the Eucharist as much as possible. Daily Mass allows us to hear the word of God and to receive Jesus in the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist. In fact, who WOULDN'T want to receive Jesus everyday?
• Pray the Rosary
     Having a devotion to Our Lady is highly recommended and something we should strive to have. The rosary is a powerful spiritual weapon, so powerful that "The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies." Satan obviously hates this and does all he can to derail it. One of the promises of Our Lady is "It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things." The goal of the church is the salvation of souls. In this day and age, we need to do all that we can to help with this. I am sure you can find some time in your day to pray the rosary, and it doesn't have to be the whole 5 decades (although the full 5 decades is the optimal goal). If you can only say 1 or 2 decades, say them. If you need more convincing, Our Lady has said that "Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life." and "Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise." (more promises of our lady can be found at http://www.ourladyweb.com/mary-rosary-about.html, parts in quotes in this paragraph are also taken from this link).
• Attend Adoration/Benediction when Offered
    Praying before the Blessed Sacrament is a wonderful thing to do. With Adoration/Benediction, Jesus is out there and right in front of you, so you can talk with him. Actually, with prayer, you always talk with God, but this allows you to spend some personal prayer time with him. Spending time doing this will definitely strengthen your prayer life, and the prayer life of the parish community in which you are a part of.
• Go to Confession
     Even if you haven't been to confession in quite a while, GO! Frequent confession helps us to stay in a pure state and renew ourselves with God, as sin (both mortal and venial) blackens the soul and makes the divide between you and God even bigger. Let us be reminded, that on the Dies Irae (or Day of Wrath), even 1(!) MORTAL sin can keep you out Heaven, Permanently. Confess your sins to the priest in both number (how many times you did the sin) and kind (basically, the type of sin, like sexual sins, for example), and be truly sorry for what sins you have committed. The priest will grant you absolution from your sins, and will most likely give you a penance to do. Part of being truly sorry for your sins is trying your very best to stay away from committing that sin (or anything that may cause you to commit that sin).

This is just a small list of things that students can do to strengthen their prayer life. If you are already doing all of this and want something a little more advanced, pray the Divine Office (a.k.a. Liturgy of the Hours).


And now, a final few words for students either going off to college for the first time or returning to college. Make sure that you continue to go to Mass even if it is the "unpopular" thing to do. Once you stop going to Mass, you sever a big connection in your prayer life between God and you. Prayer and attending Mass on Sunday (or even more frequent, like the suggestion for Daily Mass given above) help you stay "in sync" with God, and things can only get better.

So, do you already do any of these suggestions? Have I inspired you to start doing any of these suggestions? Do you have any thoughts or questions about this? Please make all known via the comment box below, or via e-mail (e-mail address is catholictechgeek@gmail.com). If you send it via e-mail, I will try to cover your query at the end of my next article (or maybe, perhaps, a post in the comment box). You can also follow me on twitter as well (username is @rctechgeek).

What happened to the Leonine Prayers?

What ever happened to the reciting of the Leonine Prayers after Mass?

To give you some background on the Leonine Prayers:  Back in the days where the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (a.k.a. Tridentine Mass) was the only form of the Roman Rite, Pope Leo XIII asked that the Leonine Prayers be said after every low Mass. When the Novus Ordo came out, the imposition (in other words, forcing) of reciting the Leonine Prayers was suppressed, according to Inter Oecumenici, a document put out by the Consilium of Sacred Congregation of Rites. This means that the Leonine Prayers were not required to be said after Mass.

However, there is spiritual benefit from reciting these prayers. Certainly, with Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum, this tradition has come back for low Masses in the Extraordinary Form. Believe it or not, these prayers can still be said after what would be the equivalent of a low Mass in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite (a.k.a. Novus Ordo). I would certainly say that those prayers SHOULD be said after the equivalent of a low Mass in the Ordinary Form. Those prayers contain some big spiritual gems.

If you don't know what the Leonine Prayers actually consists of (I give the Latin, with the English in parentheses): the sequence of prayers consists of 3 Ave Marias (Hail Marys), 1 Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen), 1 Saint Michael Exorcism Prayer (short form) (a.k.a. Prayer to Saint Michael), and 1 Cor Jesu. If you want the full text of these prayer (either to get started or as a guide), I have the full text of all the prayers uploaded, with Latin on the left side and English on the right side.

Leonine Prayers download: http://bit.ly/poJ59q

I've started the tradition of saying these prayers at my parish after daily Mass (since daily Mass is the closest thing to a low Mass). The amount of people I get varies, but there's always 1-3 people that always say it with me every time without fail. Another thing: If the Latin version of the prayers is an impediment for (full) participation for many people, do the Leonine Prayers in the vernacular. We should be doing anything and everything to make it easier for EVERYONE to participate, so if the vernacular is what gets the most people to do it, use the vernacular instead of the Latin. If the people aren't comfortable with the Latin and you are using the vernacular, you should probably wait AT LEAST a few months before engaging the people to make the suggestion to recite the prayers in Latin.

With all that is going on in the world, we certainly need extra prayers, and this is one way to get them. The St. Michael prayer is exceptionally good because with Satan and his many temptations these days, we really need God's help through the intercession of Saint Michael.

So, with that, do you already recite the Leonine Prayers in your parish after every low Mass-equivalent? Are you interested in getting this started at your parish? Do you have any other thoughts on this? Please let them be known via the comment box below. You can also follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek) or e-mail me (e-mail address is catholictechgeek@gmail.com).