How slips of paper bring people together in prayer

THE PRAYER BASKET

Just before the offertory two baskets simultaneously were passed through the church. The first was for money offerings. The second was for both giving and taking—but money wasn’t the media. It was for prayer intentions for the coming week. It was for the congregation to present their spiritual needs, and to share in the spiritual needs of each other.
My wife, Donna, and I were on vacation, and attending mass at a church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We had never seen this kind of “offering” basket used in other Catholic churches, either at home or that we had visited while traveling.
For the benefit of visitors, the celebrant, Father Jim Bracke, explained what the second basket was for, and why there were pencils and small slips of colored paper in the pews. Parishioners and visitors alike were invited to write their prayer requests on the slips of paper and drop them into the prayer basket.
Besides depositing prayer requests or intentions, those present were invited to take a slip from the basket. There was one condition: anyone taking a prayer request slip was asked to pray for the intention noted on it during the coming week.
When the prayer basket (which was a couple of sizes bigger than the regular collection basket) reached us there was a profusion of colored paper in it. As it was handed to Donna, she automatically took one of the slips of paper. I felt annoyed with her for doing it. After all, we don’t know anybody in Colorado Springs and we were just passing through. How important could that intention be? Why interject us into things; we already had many things to pray about including imminent unemployment.
She read the slip then handed it to me. When I read the prayer request, I silently gasped. I expected it to be trivial. It wasn’t. It was a plea for prayers for a family (their name was given) whose 16-year-old daughter had been killed in a traffic accident.
I was embarrassed by my shallow feelings, and at the same time my mind focused on just one thought: “How much pain that family must be enduring, and how small our problems really are.” They were sub-microscopic compared to the trial that family was suffering. “I will get another job,” I thought, “but they can never replace that child.”
In that moment of recognizing the awfulness of the family’s situation, we also felt an awe-full privilege of being able to pray for them, and share—even if only at a distance—the enormity of their pain. Although we haven’t had to deal with the death of a child or teenager, Donna and I have experienced profound grief.
During a 12-month period between October 1994 and 1995, four family members died. We lost a parent and two siblings to diseases, and the spouse of one sibling committed suicide. We know the pain of loss can be extreme. We also know that the prayers of others for us during that year of death were inestimable in our recovery.
We prayed for the family that week, and though we will probably never meet them, we nonetheless felt, and feel, spiritual bonding with them in their loss. We have a sense of what they are suffering, and what they will feel. Many months later we are still praying for God’s healing for them.
I have found myself praying especially for the girl’s father. He will never get to do for his daughter all the things I have been able to do with and for our daughter. He won’t see her graduate from high school and college. He won’t get to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. He won’t get to hold her child, his grandchild, ever.
None of those special gifts of a father-daughter relationship will be his. And each time he sees it in others there will be some pain. I pray for his family’s healing, but I pray especially for the lifting of his pain.
A couple of months later I had the opportunity to ask Father Jim about the prayer basket, and its origin. He wasn’t sure who thought of it, but it was suggested to him about three years prior at a parish Stewardship Committee meeting. They all liked the idea and it was put into practice.
He admits, however, it was slow getting started because it was something new to the parish, and people initially were uncomfortable with it. But participation is growing. He is getting more positive feedback from parishioners. More and more of them are expanding their “comfort zones,” not only in writing out their prayer requests, but by dipping into the basket and committing to praying for the needs of others.
“It stretches my heart,” he says, describing his reaction to reaching into the basket each week and taking a prayer intention slip.
By adding a prayer intention slip, or taking out one, praying for others becomes more personal. At most masses those gathered are asked to pray for various intentions announced from the altar. Those prayers are almost passively proclaimed and are typically more rote than meaningful. The prayer basket, however, brings a sense of connection and commitment to people who nominally are strangers. It helps erase anonymity amongst parishioners.
Although Donna and I have attended mass in many parts of the United States, and even in a few foreign countries, we had never seen a prayers basket until that mass in Colorado Springs. It would be wonderful to encounter it more often.