Whether your Christmas gifts are all wrapped and ready under the tree or if you’re like me and seeing the “Last-Minute Gift Guide” the other day was a signal to start shopping, you may have wondered about what to give your pastor or priest.

I haven’t polled priests on what parishioners give them for Christmas, but I imagine they may be inundated with homemade cookies, chocolate, boxes of beef sticks and cheese and fancy tissue-wrapped pears. Gift cards might be easier on the waistline, unless they are redeemable for burritos. 

My former pastor used to faithfully mail personal thank-you notes for parishioners’ Christmas gifts, which made me fear that my holiday goodwill was actually making more work for him!

If you’re still seeking a gift for your pastor or priest this Christmastide, here are some truly last-minute creative ways to honor him.  

Blogger Elizabeth Clare offers 45 gift ideas for priests, including inviting them to dinner, or to a game or movie night. Another idea is to find out important dates in your priest’s life, such as his birthday or his date of ordination or baptism, and send him cards or notes on those days. 

Other gifts on the site include caps, hats or socks with images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. (Padre) Pio or St. Francis, or Benedictine or Miraculous Medals. Rosaries such as a desert camo “survival” rosary, smaller decade rosaries or travel rosaries also make nice gifts. And EWTNRC.com always has plenty to choose from (including a list here.)

For priests and pastors who like wearing fun and thought-provoking Catholic T-shirts, parishioners can give a year’s subscription to the Catholic T-Shirt Club, which delivers a new T-shirt each month for $21. The shirts feature saint’s quotes and other messages. Also available are Catholic hoodies, stickers and sacramentals. 

I’m sure priests are grateful to get Christmas treats and other gifts, but they still have to deal with complaints from parishioners, issues with their staff, demands from their diocese or local government officials, as well as problems in their own lives.

Our physical gifts show appreciation, but our spiritual gifts are exactly what priests need because they come from God. Prayers for our priests may also help us see their perspective before we complain.

One spiritual gift that could bless priests all year is praying one or more Eucharistic Holy Hours for them. Even if it takes until July to complete an hour, your pastor or priest will get the prayer when they need it.  

If your parish doesn’t have Eucharistic adoration, you can always pray for your priest before your church’s tabernacle, even if Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament isn’t exposed in a monstrance on the altar. If you don’t have an hour to devote, try dividing it into 15-minute segments you can pray on different days, before or after Mass. 

And you can pray a Holy Hour via EWTN, too.

It’s not always clear how to pray if you don’t know your pastor’s intentions. Ask the Holy Spirit and Our Lady for guidance on how to pray for the priests in your life. 

One website offers links to many prayers and resources for Holy Hours for priests and bishops. Another site offers an e-prayer book that can be downloaded as a PDF containing Rosary meditations and other prayers for a Holy Hour for priests. And check out these helpful tips. Also check out the Adoration Sodality at Mother Angelica’s Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. 

If you can offer more time to pray for your priest or another priest or bishop in your diocese, consider joining the St. Paul, Minnesota-based Seven Sisters Apostolate, a private association of the Christian faithful that prays for priests and bishops at more than 1,350 parishes, chanceries, seminaries, hospitals and other locations around the world. Members commit to praying a Holy Hour for their pastor, priest or bishop on a particular day of each week for a year. Send a message here to find out about praying for a priest in your area.

If praying for an entire hour before the Blessed Sacrament for your pastor or priest seems like a gift you can’t give right now, consider offering him a spiritual bouquet of a Rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet or even a simple daily prayer for his intentions. You can also send prayer requests to Mother Angelica’s nuns and friars for extra prayers. 

Of all the ways to show your pastor or priest you’re grateful for all he does, prayer is always the right size and suited to every taste. 

And besides this, prayer is a gift that won’t be re-gifted!