New Year, New Prayer Requests
New Year, New Prayer Requests
(1) Start your year off right. (2) My three-word B16 eulogy. (3) Fun art stuff.
Welcome to Ordinary Time, and I hope this finds you having just wrapped up a blessed Christmas season (or finishing strong, depending on your calendar).
We’ll get back into the swing of regular evangelization-themed posts here shortly, and also a quick PSA on where to catch me live-online talking evangelization in February, but I wanted to get the year off to a proper start with a prayer-request thread.
As always: Prayer request posts are the one time the combox is open to all readers, regardless of subscriber status.
I’m going to put my own requests down in the box, and I encourage you to do so as well. I will commit to praying for your intentions, and I know for a fact that several of our regular readers are astonishingly powerful intercessors, so please allow them to serve you.
→ Subscribers at any level, if you have a private intention, you may (as always) e-mail me privately by replying to this newsletter in your inbox. I cannot commit to answering all reader e-mails, but I do read them and take them to heart. ←
Please consider leaving prayer requests today for:
Your ministry hopes for the year ahead, whatever that means in your current state in life.
Your vocation, present or future.
Loved ones who have specific needs, spiritual or pragmatic (the two are not inseparable — we are body and soul, for goodness sake).
Your own personal struggles and triumphs.
It’s okay to talk a lot. I do. There are people reading here who care about you and want to lift you up in prayer this year. This is that moment when long, rambly comments covering far too much are absolutely appropriate. Hand over the year ahead to the Lord.
You are welcome to share this thread with anyone who’d be interested in joining in.
I’ll be writing again soon, back on the usual evangelization stuff. Finally, before we get to some pure fun down at the bottom in today’s artwork, I’m going to give my eulogy for Pope Benedict: I liked him.
And that is why I have not written since his final illness and death. I had nothing to add to the excellent writing on this topic to be found elsewhere (as always, I recommend The Pillar and Our Sunday Visitor for those who want balanced, professionally-sourced Catholic news and commentary, and both have provided some excellent B16 coverage), but chattering away per my usual felt discordant.
May he rest in peace.
Happy New Year, enjoy the art, leave your prayer requests in the comments, and I’ll be in touch again soon.
Artwork: Constellations in the sky in Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone, by Davide Mauro, CC 4.0. The explanation is here (in Italian, but the machine can help you decipher it), and I make no claims whatsoever on how good of a job was done on this effort — but I’m pleased someone tried.
If you’ve received this post forwarded from a friend and would like to receive future newsletters straight to your inbox, detailed subscription info is here. Short version: I’m grateful for this blog’s financial sponsors, and thus there are perks that go with that status, but the newsletter is always 100% free to read in its entirety.
Okay, here goes, lots of things going on:
-Thanksgiving for the massive return of energy over the past month. I'm specifically requesting that the present remission (a) last long enough for me to easily give my talk next month and (b) allow me enough time to physically recover as much strength and stamina as possible.
-Please pray for the various health issues my family members are dealing with. Going to leave off the details out respect for their privacy, but this is the year we burn through the out-of-pocket max (and thank God for decent insurance), both dealing with some new concerns and finally getting around to addressing some longstanding challenges.
-Please pray for my upcoming evangelization talk to the Catholic Writers Guild. I specifically need: Energy, wisdom, and to say the things God wants me to say.
-Please pray for some loved ones who are struggling with their faith, or have lost it altogether, due to scandalous behavior in the Church both towards themselves and others.
Thank you so much!
Happy new year! Praying for you and others.
A few prayer requests:
-Please Pray for the conversion of my family, and perseverance for a family member who will be entering the Church this Easter
-Please Pray for reconciliation for members of my family who are harboring resentment towards each other
-Please pray for a friend (in another country) who is in dire straits physically, mentally, spiritually, and financially. He has a medical condition which requires long term care so he is unable to work, and his father (his last surviving family member) died suddenly last year, so he has no support system to speak of and no means to pay for treatment on which his life depends. Pray for a miraculous cure for him--or the miraculous means to access his cure the old fashioned way. Pray for my wife and I who are trying to support him as best as we can.
-Please pray for close friends of mine who had twins recently, but due to medical complications one of the twins passed away in December. Pray for their conversion, for healing and strength for them and for the repose of the soul of the their lost child.
-Please pray for a special intention.
-Please pray for the Reinvigoration of the Church, the healing of disunity within Her, and the healing of the world.
Thank you and God bless!