What is the Prayer of the Faithful?
In the General Intercessions or Prayer of the Faithful, the congregation prays for the needs of the Church and the world, responding to the invitation made by the celebrant.
As a rule, this is the sequence of intentions:
- For the needs of the Church: for the pope, the bishops, the shepherds of souls; for the missions, the unity of Christians, vocations, etc.
- For public authorities and the salvation of the world: for peace among nations, rulers, development of people, social justice; for a bountiful harvest; for freedom, prosperity, etc.
- For those oppressed by any need: for the poor, the persecuted; for the sick, broken homes, the jobless; for those in jail, unbelievers; for those who doubt, etc.
- For the local community: including the deceased, the absent, the destitute; for the dying; for the clergy, the families, for the newlywed couples, etc.
We make these intentions our own either by silent prayer or by a response said together after each intention, such as this:
- Lord, hear our prayer
We end the Prayer of the Faithful with the concluding prayer said by the priest, asking God to accept our petitions.
With this, the liturgy of the word comes to an end.
We pray for the needs of the Church and of the world as St Paul admonished Timothy, one of his disciples:
My advice is that, first of all, prayers should be offered for everyone—petitions, intercessions, and thanksgiving—and especially for kings and others in authority, so that we may live religious and reverent lives in peace (1 Tim 2:1-3).
All of us gathered in the temple will be ready to spread the whole message of salvation, keeping in mind the true meaning of ethics in which the distinction between good and evil is not relativized, the real meaning of sin, the necessity for conversion, and the universality of the law of fraternal love.
“A man or a society that does not react to suffering and injustice and makes no effort to alleviate them is still distant from the love of Christ’s heart. While Christians enjoy the fullest freedom in finding and applying various solutions to these problems, they should be united in having one and the same desire to serve mankind. Otherwise, their Christianity will not be the word and life of Jesus; it will be a fraud, a deception of God and man.” St. Josemaría
The law of fraternal love is a consequence of our divine filiation. All those who are called to share the same faith are brothers, children of the same Father. We realize we cannot enclose ourselves in an exclusively individualistic search for God. Each one must commit himself to help the others get closer to God and to give an answer to the present needs of the world. A man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen. Each one must be ready to serve the others, helping to find solutions to their problems and to unjust situations.
Oct 30 Thu