Prayers of the Faithful
Parish Diary
Fr. Peter Daly
2/26/99
Prayers of the Faithful
In our parish the Prayer of the Faithful is
spontaneous. People place their
petitions before God
and the church, after a brief introduction from the priest.
It works pretty well.
Most people pray for the sick or for someone who has died. When there is a big event in the news, it
often makes its way into our prayer. For
instance when Princess Diana died, a number of little children were moved to
pray for her.
A
lot of the folks are too shy to say anything at all. Some just say, "For a special
intention." This is fine, except
that then we don't really know what we are praying for. (It could be that we are praying that their
neighbor's dog will die.) Probably they keep the intention vague because it is
something they are too embarrassed to talk about publicly. We understand.
Sometimes,
however, after we have had three or for "special intentions" in a row
I feel like saying "For all of
our special intentions." After
all, we always pray for the "all the prayers we hold in our hearts."
That should cover it.
Some
people have a single intention that they voice at every mass, e.g., "For
the unborn" or "for the children of our parish."
One
man often prays by name for all the priests who have been at our parish during
his time. Until recently he left me out.
Lately I've been added to the list, which tells me he has finally
accepted me.
Every
now and then someone rambles on a little bit.
Sometimes they loose their train of thought. Recently one man started out to pray for
somebody, but forgot the name, so he just said, "For our neighbors to the
south." It made no sense to us but
we dutifully said, "Lord hear our
prayer." God can sort it out.
Really our spontaneous prayer is not so spontaneous. We have a clearly defined etiquette. God help the visitor who violates the
pecking order.
At
weekday mass we have a dear, motherly lady, Mary Claire, who always prays
first. We know to wait for her. On the rare occasions that she is not at mass
there are a couple of seconds of dead air while people look around. Often someone will say, "For all of Mary
Claire's intentions, we pray to the Lord."
Only then are we free to begin with our intentions.
Mary
Claire has a list. She starts out with
the "right to life of all innocent babies throughout this whole
world" and then touches briefly on world peace, an end to starvation and
communism, vocations, the sick, travelers and usually ends up with the
unemployed. Those are the regulars. She also has seasonally adjusted
intentions. God does not rest during flu
season if Mary Claire has anything to say about it.
Sometimes she clarifies things for God a bit. For
instance, when she prays, "for all travelers," she often adds, "whether for
business or for pleasure." She
wants God to remember her son, who drives a 18-wheeler
out west. He is certain that it was his
mother's prayers that saved him last year when his rig rolled over in a
blinding snowstorm.
God
listens to Mary Claire and her husband Bill.
She prayed for an end to communism in
When I first came to this parish I made the mistake of cutting
off the spontaneous petitions on Sundays, thinking they would go on too
long. At the first parish council
meeting there was an explosion. I never
tried that again. Never would. Our prayer is truly the prayer of the
"faithful." It is a window to our
worries and our loves.