Mr. Scafidi's Catholic Page

     
      God Bless Our Pope!
      The great, the good!
     
    ...that he might supply thy place
after thy departure from this world..

We are not surprised at Thy requiring from Peter
a greater love than Thou didst require from his brother Apostles:
Thou didst will to make him their and our shepherd.
Peter answered Thee without hesitation, that he loved Thee;
and Thou didst confer upon him Thine own name,
together with the reality of Thine office,
in order that he might supply Thy place after Thy departure from this world.

Preserve us, O Jesus, in the fold of Peter, which is Thine.

Be thou blessed, O divine Shepherd!
for Thy having thus provided for the necessities of Thy fold,
which could not be one,
were it to have many shepherds without one supreme shepherd.
In obedience to Thy command,
we bow down before Peter, with love and submission;
we respectfully kiss his sacred feet;
for it is by him that we are united to Thee;
it is by him that we are Thy sheep.
Preserve us, O Jesus, in the fold of Peter, which is Thine.
Keep far from us the hireling who usurps the place and rights of the shepherd.
He has intruded himself, or been intruded by violence, into the fold,
and would have us take him as the master;
but he knows not the sheep, and the sheep do not know him.
Led, not by zeal, but by avarice and ambition,
he flieth at the approach of danger.
He that governs through worldly motives
is not a man to lay down his life for others.
The schismatic pastor loves himself; he does not love Thy sheep;
how could he give his life for them?
Protect us, O Jesus, from this hireling!
He would separate us from Thee, by separating us from Peter,
whom thou hast appointed Thy Vicar;
and we are determined to recognize no other