If the pope used Twitter or
Facebook to rally people together to pray for one intention, how many
millions of prayers could be raised to heaven within minutes?
In some countries, Facebook and the Internet already are being used by
the Apostleship of Prayer to build community and distribute the pope's
monthly prayer intentions. But in most places in the world, when the
pope makes a special public appeal for prayers, people hear about it
only through the Catholic media.
For 167 years, members of the Apostleship of Prayer have begun each day
offering their lives to God and praying for the needs of the universal
church and the intentions of the pope.
The offering and the prayers are the basic membership requirements, and
in most places the apostleship has "no registration, no groups, no fees,
no special meetings," so no one really knows how many people belong.
Jesuit Father Claudio Barriga, who oversees the organization from the
Jesuit headquarters near the Vatican, said he estimates there are about
50 million people fulfilling the membership requirements in the
apostleship and its youth wing, the Eucharistic Youth Movement.
The Jesuit said he was in Vietnam in January and discovered that there
are Apostleship of Prayer groups in every diocese with an estimated 1
million involved.
A government-approved bishop in mainland China reported that there is a
group of people who makes the offering and prays for the pope's
intentions each day in his cathedral, Father Barriga said.
In the United States, he said, "it's mainly a digital community"
thriving through the use of the website www.apostleshipofprayer.org --
which includes links to a daily audiovisual meditation posted on YouTube
-- and through both national and parish-based Facebook pages.
But it's also big in remote areas of Angola where many people have never
even seen a computer and in Madagascar where about 250,000 young people
belong to the Eucharistic Youth Movement, he said.
Father Barriga knows that for many people, the Apostleship of Prayer is
seen as a way for the elderly to exercise their piety; he said it wasn't
that long ago that he thought so, too.
The Jesuit does not seem particularly bothered about not having a
membership list or even just a head count; he said he wants to help
people pray, and if just getting the list of the pope's prayer
intentions is enough, that's good.
But for many people, he said, it could be helpful to have contact with
others making the same effort and to receive guidance from someone who
has been making the effort even longer.
Father Barriga said the prayer life promoted by the apostleship is
"simple, but not simplistic," and schoolchildren in the poorest village
and business leaders in the biggest cities all can find the 10 or 15
minutes a day it takes to fulfill the apostleship's requirements.
Of course, he said, there's no guarantee that belonging won't change a person.
"It's a Jesus program, a way to live with Jesus' heart," he said.
"You have at least 50 million people praying each day for a month for
something like those who do not have access to clean water -- that
creates awareness" and could lead to enough action that less water would
be wasted and less would be polluted, he said.
"If what you are praying for doesn't change you, then you aren't praying correctly," Father Barriga said.
But the distribution of the monthly intentions is not a publicity
campaign for living more responsibly, he said. They really are prayers.
"We pray to God because God is the one who moves human hearts," the Jesuit said.
With little international coordination, the Apostleship of Prayer and
the Eucharistic Youth Movement seem to have depended on whether a local
Jesuit superior appointed someone energetic to lead the ministry or
whether the people involved kept meeting and bringing others onboard.
One reason the Jesuits are looking to "re-create" the apostleship is to
strengthen the Jesuits' commitment to it -- whether to leading groups
personally or virtually over the Internet, Father Barriga said.
Another reform at which the Jesuits are looking is helping to keep
members focused on the big, important "permanent needs" of the church
and the world as reflected in the monthly prayer intentions, while also
being able to count on millions of people's prayers when special needs
or disasters arise, Father Barriga said.
The Apostleship of Prayer is responsible for the annual distribution of "the pope's prayer intentions" for each month.
Pope Benedict XVI's general intention for February, which includes
Valentine's Day, is: "That all may respect the family and recognize its
unmatched contribution to the advancement of society."
His missionary intention for the month, which includes the Feb. 12
celebration of World Day of the Sick, is: "That the Christian
communities may witness to the presence of Christ in serving those who
suffer from disease in those mission territories where the fight against
disease is most urgent."
The apostleship and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
help the pope draw up a year's list of monthly intentions, which are
published a full year in advance. The lists for 2012 were published by
the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, Jan. 28.
Obviously, Father Barriga said, when the prayers are chosen so far in advance, it's hard to make them very specific and timely.
But now that so many people have access to a computer, or at least to
the radio, the Jesuit said it may be time to look for more instant ways
to raise a call to prayer.