Sunday January 19th, 2020

Earlier this week, I ran across a list of Pope Francis’ monthly prayer intentions for 2020. This is part of the Apostleship of Prayer, started in 1844 by a group of Jesuit seminarians. They were eager to start their missionary work in India and the Americas, but were stuck in their academic formation. A wise spiritual director reminded them that the salvation of souls is fundamentally a supernatural goal, and could therefore most effectively be achieved through supernatural means. The grace of prayer is where this starts. And so they started the Apostleship of Prayer as a way of empowering all Catholics, no matter where they were or what they were doing, to be a part of the missionary work of the Church. This group grew and spread rapidly, and in the 1880’s, Pope Leo XIII saw the power in this simple approach to missionary work by the whole church. He called on the members to take on specific monthly intentions, given by the Pope, as part of their daily prayer. The Apostleship of Prayer quickly earned the nickname, “the Pope’s own prayer group.” [...]