Supplication of ASCO Members for the Health of the Pope (Francis)
O God our creator and father, with confidence as your children we come to you to ask that you cast your benign countenance on our pope and patron of the ASCO Initiative, in this period when he faces the challenge of ill health. May he experience the closeness of your paternal love, which alone is able to strengthen and sustain him; and, according to your perfect will, bring him back to good health and to the pastorage which your Son entrusted to the apostle, Peter.
O Jesus, Saviour of the world and Spouse of Holy Church, look upon thy vicar and shepherd of your Church and grant him relief in body and respite in spirit. You who bore affliction to obtain salvation for us, aid the pope (Francis) in this affliction of ill health. Lift him as you lifted the mother-in-law of Peter, your vicar; so that united with your passion, his sufferings may bear the holy fruit of redemption.
O Spirit Divine, comforter and counsellor of the Christian faithful, succour our pope with thy gifts of fortitude and peace. You who art the custodian of the light of God and the teacher of all truth, deign, in your clemency, to enlighten the medical and pastoral staff who assist the pope in this trial time. Direct them to the right measures necessary for his attainment of spiritual and bodily wellness.
O Mary, Mother of the Church, Queen of the Apostles and health of the sick, intercede for the vicar of your Son and succour him with your perpetual sustenance. Place him in the safety of your holy mantle and in the refuge of your Immaculate Heart, where illness and even death do not prevail but serve the inscrutable divine will.
O ye apostolic princes, Peter and Paul, founders and patrons of the Holy Roman Church, we implore thy apostolic aid for the bishop of Rome (and proprietor of the ASCO Initiative) in this time of bodily infirmity and corporal suffering. You who gave your lives for the testimony of the Lord Jesus and shed your blood in Rome to firmly seal the seed of the Gospel, we beseech you to attend to the present bodily and spiritual needs of the Bishop of Rome and our Holy Father, (Pope Francis). We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
