WHAT'S NEW

What’s new? Hopefully one or more of these links given below can help enlighten your day and strengthen your prayer life! No doubt you have received articles and links in your e-mailboxes concering our faith that you’ve passed along to family, friends, and acquaintances. We here at Our Catholic Prayers wish to do so here as well!

For those of you who have visited our prayer requests section and posted your intentions, be assured that we here at Our Catholic Prayers and many of our readers are praying for you. Please feel free to post requests and to tell others about this page!

MAKE SUNDAY THE LORD'S DAY!

We’d like to share with our readers some interesting articles on the power of prayer from different angles. For starters, we offer Archbishop Timothy Dolan's thoughts on what has been called a “perfect prayer to God,” the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He writes of the importance of going to Mass on Sundays, first in a column he wrote on his blog on St. Patrick's Day and then in this enlightening followup on its benefits a few weeks later.

Do you know of someone who’s stopped going to Sunday Mass, for whatever reason? Perhaps you yourself have let a few Sundays slip by. The archbishop can help inspire us all to make Sunday “the Lord’s Day” by attending Mass. Ideally, we should all try to go to Mass other days of the week whenever possible. But God asks of us that we at least give Him an hour or so on Sunday (or on Saturday evening at the vigil Mass).

(Remember, also for Catholics, missing Sunday Mass for a reason other than some emergency, health related concern, or other logistical impediment is a mortal sin.)

As Archibishop Dolan puts it so well in the first column mentioned above, “the Eucharist is the most beautiful, powerful prayer that we have. To miss it is to miss Jesus — His Word, His people, His presence, His Body and Blood.” In his second piece linked above, he cites the detailed results of a Pew research survey showing how “Simply put, a Catholic faithful to Sunday Mass has a happier, holier, healthier life!”

This link is great for checking out Mass schedules for your parish worldwide! We also recommend the links on this page for Mass readings and some good meditations on them.

CHANGES TO THE LITURGY OF THE MASS

While we’re on the subject, it is worth pointing out that some meaningful revisions to the English translation of the Roman Missal will be implemented in 2012 as discussed in this article. (The Roman Missal is the volume comtaining the Mass texts and prayers.)

Further information can be found in this booklet entitled “And with your Spirit” that helps to explain what’s being changed and why. The idea is to recover “a sense of the sacred” in the liturgy. (Note that you will need Adobe’s Acrobat Reader to open the text and save it to your computer.) This website from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also has some helpful links.

THE ROSARY: A POWERFUL FAMILY PRAYER

Moving along, we’d like to turn our attention to one of the most famous Catholic prayers, one that in many ways is crucial for our salvation, the Rosary! We came across this inspiring story of how a mother’s praying a rosary novena for her son helped heal him spiritually in a profound way. We also wish to share this moving tribute to a father’s loving perseverance in praying the Rosary with his wife in the midst of his devastating illness.

As the late Pope John Paul II wrote in his Apostolic Letter on the Holy Rosary, “The Holy Rosary by age old tradition has shown itself particularly effective as a prayer which brings the family together.” But remember this prayer isn’t just for families. The Rosary can help us all to live in what Deacon Keith Fournier calls "a Mary Moment," in which we “bear God to an age in need” as the Blessed Mother did in the Gospels (and still does today!)

SOME TIPS ON PRAYER

Would you like to pray more but find you just don’t have time? Or do you feel too intimidated somehow? Don’t worry. You’re not alone! But developing a better prayer life isn’t as hard as it may seem. (In fact, it’s easier than keeping on a diet to lose weight, or giving up certain bad habits, such as smoking!)

This article has some good suggestions on improving your prayer life. The author stresses the importance of giving God some quiet time each day. Even 15 minutes a day can help you deepen your friendship with Him. Let our Lord help you with the graces you need to cope in this world. You can get them from Him through prayer!

Making a Spirtual Communion with Jesus is a simple and yet powerful way to get closer to our Lord for example. We have this prayer on our site as well.

PRO-LIFE ISSUES

Now more than ever we urge our readers to offer prayers for the unborn and to keep informed on pro-life issues on Life News, Life Site News, as well as EWTN's own pro-life site.

Speaking of prayers for the unborn, The Great Prayer Project - End Abortion is an inspiring website that invites us all to join in one continuous year of prayer to end the tragedy of abortion starting March 25, 2010. You can participate in this project by signing up on their site to pray for 20 minutes, at a time that works best for you.

We also need to note here that the organization Americans United For Life is also doing some important work in trying to keep Abortion out of Health Care reform. Along these lines, it is also important for us to stand up for healthcare professionals who wish to opt out of performing abortions or other such procedures that may go against their conscience as Christians, as discussed here.

STAYING STRONG IN TROUBLED TIMES

And finally, we wish to point out to our readers our section of prayers for troubled times as well as this helpful article on some practical steps you can take to keep close to God in this era of great economic distress for so many.

Keep in mind, also, that our Lord can intimately share your failures and frustrations by virtue of His Passion. As we are reminded here, no one is worthless in His eyes! Christ loves us enough to have died for us, so that we might have Eternal Life!

We hope our Lord and our wonderful Faith can be a source of great comfort and strength for each of you. We at Our Catholic Prayers wish you and your loved ones a blessed Summer!

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