Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Catholic Prayer Breakfast
March 19, 2026
To watch the closing prayer and benediction, together with the introduction by Mark Randall, please click below:
The text of the closing prayer and benediction are below:
Introduction:
There is only one breakfast recorded in the Gospel. Jesus was the cook. It was after the Resurrection, and Jesus made some toast for Saint Peter and six other of the first disciples of the Lord, and then he cooked some of the fish that they had just caught. At the very end of that first breakfast, Jesus did something super important. He gave Peter, and through Peter the church, a summons for action, asking him three times, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?” And after Simon Peter affirmed that he did, Jesus told him to pay that love forward, “Feed my sheep. … Feed my lambs. … Tend my sheep.” Jesus never said to us, “Love me as I have loved you,” but always, “Love one another as I have loved you.” And our love for Jesus is going to be shown by the way we allow his love to transform us, and in transforming us, begin to transform our country ever for the better. So I’d invite everyone please to stand as we pray for the Lord to recommission us to carry his love from sea to shining.
Prayer
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Heavenly Father,
At the end of this 21st National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, we thank you for our Catholic faith, for the meal you’ve given us, for all the blessings you have given our country over the last 250 years and for the opportunity together to come to pray to you for our country, that we may truly be, and always remain, One Nation Under God.
One Nation. Through our Catholic communion, help us to become one in the one Christ so that we may help unite our land.
Under God. Through our striving to be the best servants of our country, but yours first, strengthen us to help our fellow citizens learn to give to you what belongs to God and always remain under your protection, providence, and precepts.
On this Solemnity of Saint Joseph, patron and protector of the Church, help us to live with the virtues that truly marked his life: to be just, faithful, obedient, humble, diligent, prayerful, charitable, most chaste, Marian and totally committed to your Son.
You have made us, Father, for mission. Help us to fulfill our mission to be salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a leaven that lifts everyone up. Give us the courage we need to recognize the ways in which our salt may have lost its flavor, our light may have been hidden, our leaven may have become more like that of the Pharisees and Herodians than that of the saints, and, through your mercy, recommit ourselves to the task you for which you have created and redeemed us.
Help us to build here in our country a civilization of love, a culture of life and a place of true Christian hospitality by which we also seek to treat others the way we would treat your Son. At a time of conflicts and divisions at home and abroad, make us true peacemakers so that we might not only be called, but behave, as your children.
As we leave, through St. Joseph’s intercession, bring out the best in us so that we might help bring out the best in the country we love, as we celebrate our 250th birthday and recommit ourselves to its full flourishing as one nation under you.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.