Prayer for Beatification of
Fr. Samuel Mazzuchelli
Prayer for the Beatification of Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, OP
LORD JESUS, you called your servant, Samuel, even in early youth, to leave home and all for a Dominican life of charity in preaching your holy gospel. You gave him abundant graces of Eucharistic love, devotion to your holy Mother of Sorrows, and a consuming zeal for souls. Grant, we beseech you, that his fervent love and labors for you may become more widely known, to a fruitful increase of your Mystical Body, to his exaltation and to our own constant growth in devoted love of you Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign one God, world without end. Amen. (With ecclesiastical permission)
For more than 70 years, the Sinsinawa Dominican Congregation has been praying a devotional prayer for the beatification of our founder, Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, OP. The following is an explanation of how the prayer came to be, its changes, and the form it takes today.
- 1897. Father John Raymond Volz, OP, served as chaplain at Sinsinawa Mound from 1897 to 1899. He had learned about Fr. Samuel while growing up in Faribault, MN, where he was taught by the Sinsinawa Dominicans. His deep devotion to Fr. Samuel was private.
- June 25, 1937. Fr. Volz wrote a prayer for the beatification of Fr. Samuel and sent it to his niece, Sister Mary Frederic Volz, OP, at Sinsinawa Mound. His intention was for the prayer to be “for private use.” Fr. Volz asked Sr. Frederic to share the prayer with Mother Samuel Coughlin, OP, and to have the community recite it daily. Sr. Frederic was unaware of her uncle’s devotion to Fr. Samuel until this time.
- April 21, 1939. Bishop Alexander McGavick of the Diocese of La Crosse, WI, granted the Imprimatur [permission to publish] for the prayer.
- May 28, 1939. Mother Samuel sent a letter to all the Sisters after meeting with His Holiness Pope Pius XII, stating, “I told him of Father Mazzuchelli and the great work he had done. We asked as our first petition that His Holiness would bless our encouraging public and private prayers for the beatification of Father Mazzuchelli. The Holy Father approved.”
- 1939. The first novena was prayed with the prayer for a special intention. It soon became a custom to have private novenas prayed for people who asked for special intentions from God through the intercession of Fr. Samuel. Novenas are currently prayed four times per year.
- Oct. 25, 1947. Bishop William O’Connor of the new Diocese of Madison, WI, granted Imprimatur for the prayer.
- Dec. 23, 1955. Bishop O’Connor, Madison, granted Imprimatur for a revised, simplified version of the prayer.
- March 27, 1965. Mother Benedicta Larkin, OP, wrote to the Sisters announcing approval by Bishop O’Connor “to make modification in prayer . . . so that we may now use you, your, etc. instead of Thou, Thine, Thy.” Fr. Samuel’s middle name, Charles, was dropped at this time. This is the form in which the prayer is said today (at right).
If you would like your intentions to be included in a novena, please contact Sister Christiane Althaus, OP, via e-mail at calthaus@sinsinawa.org or by phone at (608) 748-4411. You can also go online and click here on “Novena Prayer.”
Compiled by Eileen Dushek-Manthe