Why are those who write the Prayer of the Faithful on crack?
One of the tasks that I, and seemingly a lot of other priests, do not like to do is write the Prayers of the Faithful, also known as General Intercessions. There is a pattern that we are suppose to follow; after an invitation to prayer there should be an intercession for the Church (Pope, bishops, priests, etc.), then for civil leaders, special concerns (homelessness, natural disaster victims, etc.), local needs, then the sick and the dead, and ending with a prayer offering these intercessions to God. In the busyness of our lives we often look for good published books with General Intercessions which we can use or at least adapt.
I have been being mocked since this summer. When I was in St. Louis for my niece’s First Holy Communion, the parish there had a book of General Intercessions that I had not seen before. A very quick scan of it, lead me to think it might be useful (it has general intercessions for all the Sundays and Solemnities, for all three years of the Lectionary cycle), so we purchased a copy of it. It has proven to be shockenly bad. Here are the intercessions for the Assumption:
“For the beautiful, that they will grow more hansome with age, we pray to the Lord.”
“For the homely, that their hearts may be beautiful enough to show through, we pray to the Lord.”
“For the old, that we may love their mellowness and character, we pray to the Lord.”
“For the middle-aged, that we may admire their strength and support their weariness, we pray to the Lord.”
“For the young, that we may be tolerant of their youth, we pray to the Lord.”
Could you imagine what kind of response we would have gotten for praying for the homely? I guess the young have nothing to offer, we must simply tolerate them.
Or how about these for the Immaculate Conception:
“For those who haul garbage, clean our parks and streets, inhale dirt and fumes, that their work and lives will be blessed as they help us keep the world clean, ….”
“For employers whose primary interest is in effciency, self-confidence, and good appearance, that they will also hire the ugly, create a demand for the unwanted, and support those who are new on the job, ….”
I think the author has a hang up about their appearance. While some of the intercessions in the book are OK, I guess the search continues.
