For Your Own People

Responsible before God for the members of the monastic community, an abbot or abbess guides, protects, and serves those committed to their pastoral care. Aelred of Rievaulx, a twelfth-century Cistercian abbot, in this prayer entreats Jesus to assist him in the awesome task of bringing to God the brothers whom Christ called to his cloister.
All those who exercise pastoral oversight, and those who, like parents and godparents, are responsible for nurturing others in the christian faith, will resonate with Aelred's prayer.