Alleluia to Amen: The Prayer Book for Catholic Parishes

By Justin McClain and Timothy P. O'Malley

Alleluia to Amen is an indispensable resource for parish leaders and volunteers looking for prayers to offer at gatherings outside of Mass. Justin McClain, author of Called to Pray and Called to Teach, provides busy leaders like you with original and traditional prayers to help you lead your faith community in prayer with confidence and ease.

While Catholics regularly gather for liturgical celebrations and for devotions such as the Rosary and Stations of the Cross, we also pray in all sorts of settings and for many reasons—to begin and end meetings, to bless events, and to mark the launch of major undertakings such as a capital campaign, for example. We instinctively gather in prayer in sorrow during times of tragedy and in gratitude for unexpected good fortune.

Alleluia to Amen: The Prayer Book for Catholic Parishes has your needs covered for the myriad of occasions that fall outside liturgical celebrations and communal devotions. Catholic author and high school theology teacher Justin McClain provides prayers for:

• each day of the week;
• the natural and liturgical seasons of the year;
• regularly scheduled meetings for various ministry groups;
• parish events such as service projects, festivals,  and training of liturgical ministers;
• occasional events and activities such as welcoming a new staff member; and
• unexpected events and crises.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ave Maria Press
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781594719288

Justin McClain

Justin McClain is a teacher at Divine Mercy Academy in Pasadena, Maryland. He taught theology and Spanish at Bishop McNamara High School from 2006 to 2021. He has also served as an adjunct lecturer in Spanish for the precollege programs at the University of Maryland, College Park, and taught English as a second language at Prince George’s Community College. He received a Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching and commitment to Catholic education from the Archdiocese of Washington in 2017. McClain is the author of several books, including Called to Teach, Alleluia to Amen, and the award-winning Called to Pray. He is a regular contributor to the National Catholic Register, Catholic Exchange, and the National Catholic Educational Association. He was a consultant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church’s Subcommittee on African-American Affairs in 2015, as well as to the USCCB’s Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development, and the Secretariat of Catholic Education, in 2018. McClain is a lay Dominican. He lives with his wife, Bernadette, and their children in Bowie, Maryland.

Book preview

"Empowering our student leaders in college ministry settings requires equipping them with materials that will help them become stronger leaders. Justin McClain’s Alleluia to Amen is a resource that aids our student parishioners in becoming more confident in both individual and group prayers. The book’s easy format and breadth of prayers allows for people in different stages of their faith journey to be confident in leading prayers for any occasion."

Rosie Chinea Shawver

Director of Campus Ministry

Our Savior Parish and USC Caruso Catholic Center

"Pray without ceasing. St. Paul said it. The Church recommends it. And Justin McClain’s new book helps us accomplish it. Never again be at a loss for words of prayer in a parish setting. Alleluia to Amen assists those in leadership and supportive roles to find the right words to call God’s people to prayer. It is immensely practical and filled with the Spirit. It makes a great gift for parish clergy, catechists, teachers, group leaders, and even Catholic families."

Pat Gohn

Editor of Catechist

Alleluia, indeed! This wonderful collection of prayers is what every parish needs in its library: a fresh, contemporary, and winningly accessible compendium of hope, praise, petition, and thanksgiving. I’m giving this to every priest, deacon, and catechist I know. This book will be used again and again, and can turn almost every occasion into an opportunity to pray. We need that in our world—now, more than ever. Amen!

Deacon Greg Kandra

Journalist and blogger at The Deacon’s Bench

"In Alleluia to Amen: The Prayer Book for Catholic Parishes, Justin McClain has taken up the challenge of reuniting liturgy and everyday life. This is a book that can help parishes around the county learn to once again sanctify each moment of time. It is precisely the kind of book that allows even us busy twenty-first-century Catholics to pray—as best as we are able—constantly."

From the foreword by Timothy P. O’Malley

Director of Education

McGrath Institute for Church Life

University of Notre Dame

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC, and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Foreword © 2019 by Timothy P. O’Malley

____________________________________

© 2020 by Justin McClain

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews, without written permission from Ave Maria Press®, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, 1-800-282-1865.

Founded in 1865, Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the United States Province of Holy Cross.

www.avemariapress.com

Paperback: ISBN-13 978-1-59471-927-1

E-book: ISBN-13 978-1-59471-928-8

Cover image © Andreas von Einsiedel / Alamy Stock Photox.

Cover and text design by Samantha Watson.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

1. Days of the Week

2. Seasons and Movable Feasts

3. Major Feasts, Solemnities, and Memorials by Month

4. Civic Holidays and Remembrances

5. Regularly Scheduled Parish Activities

6. Occasional Parish Events

7. Times of Crisis or Particular Need

8. For Increased Virtue, Obedience, Mercy, and Holiness

9. Occupations, Vocations, and Stages of Life

10. Traditional Catholic Prayers

Appendix: Writing Prayers for Your Group’s Gathering

Author Biography

Foreword

In the context of how to order the life of the local Church, Paul writes, Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thes 5:16–18).

The early Church took seriously Paul’s exhortation to pray constantly. Monks left behind the cities to pray through the Psalter each day. Within the cities themselves, the bishop would gather with the faithful to sing Morning and Evening Prayer. Lay Christians would wake up in the middle of the night to offer prayers and spiritual hymns to Christ. The act of worship permeated every dimension of Christian life, whether one was a cleric, a consecrated religious, or a layperson.

In medieval Catholicism, the order of prayer for monks became more complicated. Lay Catholics—at least those wealthy enough to own books—wanted access to the prayer of the monks. The Books of Hours adapted the Liturgy of the Hours for use by laypeople. There were selections of psalms, devotional prayers, and illuminations that placed the central figures of salvation history in the context of the time period and city where the prayer book was produced.

The liturgical calendars of these prayer books were often decorated with scenes from daily life. An early sixteenth-century prayer book from Belgium is an extraordinary example of this union of prayer and daily life. The section for February shows an image of a man chopping wood. In April, a woman picks flowers in a garden. In November, a pig is slaughtered, while in December, a snowball fight breaks out.

The union of day-to-day imagery and the sanctoral cycle of the Church is no accident! The tasks of life in the world take place alongside the feasts of the Church year. As the medieval Church celebrated the Presentation of the Lord in February, wood had to be chopped to keep people warm. Christians knew that everyday human activities such as plowing the fields, snowball fights, and even courtship all unfolded in a world in which the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. All time, all human activity, has been transformed through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

In the early modern age, this union of daily life and the liturgy began to weaken. The feasts of the Church year competed with a new sort of economic life. Factories were not shut down for the feasts of the Church, since this would mean a loss of money. Going to church was an essential activity for a respectable citizen on Sunday, but the rest of the week (especially for men) was ordered to politics and work.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the liturgical movement sought to reconnect daily life to the liturgy. The goal was not simply to reform the rites of the Church, making them comprehensible for the contemporary person, but rather to bring together liturgical prayer and daily life once again. There were efforts to transform the domestic space into a place infused with liturgical practice. Feast days were to be celebrated with special meals, prayers, and chants. Groups of lawyers, health care professionals, and students formed study groups where they discussed ways of infusing daily life with the spirit of the liturgy. The University of Notre Dame for the first time offered courses in theological education on how to participate fruitfully in the prayer of the liturgy.

Sadly, in the twenty-first century, the gap between liturgy and life has grown larger still. The feasts of the Church year are not known by many Catholics in the pews. The fissure between Sunday eucharistic practice and the rest of life has only increased. As we grow busier, as everything speeds up, how are we to rediscover a way of sanctifying everyday life? The weekend should never be just an opportunity to participate in leisure activities related to consumerism and entertainment. Rather, it is to be a time to give thanks to God for rest and for communion with one another in our homes and in our parishes. Daily life is offered back to God through prayers that are accessible, attuned to the liturgical seasons, and related to every dimension of our Catholic lives.

In Alleluia to Amen: The Prayer Book for Catholic Parishes, Justin McClain has taken up the challenge of reuniting liturgy and everyday life. This is a book that can help parishes around the country learn to once again sanctify each moment of time. It is precisely the kind of book that allows even us busy twenty-first-century Catholics to pray—as best as we are able—constantly.

Timothy P. O’Malley, PhD

Director of Education, McGrath Institute for Church Life

University of Notre Dame

Introduction

The heart of the Church resides in our parishes—the foundational centers from which we Catholics draw our identity, nourishment, and mission as disciples of Jesus Christ. Parishes are where we meet God in Word and sacrament, in the ordained ministers of the Church, and in the lay faithful. We gather in parishes to pray daily, weekly, and for particular occasions, both planned and unexpected. Parish prayer marks our coming and our going, our work and our play, our need for comfort and our great rejoicing. Prayer teaches us who we are and points us toward becoming more. In the seemingly constant motion of busy lives, we seek and find refuge in our parish churches and in our communities wherein the Lord himself resides.

Every parish hosts various people, activities, ministries, and events. We regularly gather to pray the Church’s liturgy, of course, but we also gather for and pray at meetings, social events, service projects, dedications of new buildings, times of crisis and sorrow, and days of great rejoicing. As disciples of Christ, members of his Body, we must be rooted in and remain guided by prayer in all we do together as the Church. When the parish community is animated, challenged, and nourished by an enduring commitment to communal prayer, we are empowered to live and spread the Gospel, to evangelize. That is where this book comes in.

The prayers of Alleluia to Amen supplement and are never meant to replace the Church’s liturgical celebrations, which anchor the spiritual life of the parish. They seek to draw the parish community closer to Christ and to one another in the interest of fellowship based on fidelity, reflective of the words of St. Paul to the Christian community at Corinth: God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor 1:9).

These prayers can be used for a variety of needs and in many circumstances in the life of a parish. Of course, impromptu prayers are reliably useful as well, but at times you may find that you don’t have the clarity of mind or even the energy to pray spontaneously in a manner suitable to the occasion. Catholics are accustomed to worshipping together—our public prayer—and so many times you will realize that an already-composed prayer is just what you want. The prayers in this book are for those times.

Laypeople and clergy alike will find here a treasury of options for parish prayers. Anyone called to lead a group within the parish ought to feel comfortable using and, when needed, adapting these prayers to strengthen the life of the parish. The topical index at the back of the book will help you locate just the right ones, and the appendix will help you learn to develop your own prayers for times when that approach will be more helpful.

May our parish communities rejoice always, [and] pray constantly (1 Thes 5:16–17)!

Days of the Week

Sunday

Sunday Morning

Lord Jesus Christ, we praise and thank you for the gift of joy as we begin this new day and welcome the beginning of a new week filled with promise. Fill us with hope, and be with us in our joys and in our challenges. Strengthen us to serve you and to bring the good