Each time I get to a prayer resource that asks for my personal intentions, this is what I ask. Dear Lord, please heal our world; please heal our culture; and please heal my family. These three are somewhat interrelated, but I do have three unique ideas in mind.
Our World
When I ask God to heal our world, I am mostly talking about the Coronavirus. Of course, there are a lot of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual problems in the world that need our Lord’s help, but for now, the pressing issue is the pandemic.
It seems like it will never end at this point, but I still believe that God will guide someone to the medical solution when the time is right. I sometimes wonder if there are still some big lessons that we are supposed to be getting during this pandemic, and God’s just giving us more time to discover them.
Our Culture
When I ask God to heal our culture, I am speaking more about the spiritual state of society in general. The secularist influence has certainly taken hold, and it is getting out of control. Popular media and public voices are increasingly critical of Christianity, and at times, they get absolutely hostile.
Respect for life gets twisted to be viewed as hatred and oppression of women. Devotion to faith becomes a trigger for assumed intolerance.
Meanwhile, incidents of depression and anxiety become increasingly common. A lot of really caring individuals want to help but have very little chance of success because they rely almost exclusively on secular solutions. I believe we have come to the point that these problems cannot be solved without the grace of the Holy Spirit guiding us. Unfortunately, the leaders in the pop culture world are doing their best to discredit and silence faith-based solutions.
My Family
I know each of us has our own unique, yet similar sets of family issues, and we bring those to our Lord in prayer. This might be the one area that tends to bring people to prayer most often. Of course, I have several family members struggling with medical issues, but I’m also worried about the emotional and spiritual struggles. In particular, I worry that I wasn’t devoted enough to my faith when my kids were little. I see and hear about so many great ideas for Catholic mothers, and I wish I had found them a couple decades ago.
At any rate, the Lord knows my heart and knows what I need – and what we need. Let’s always remember that Jesus gave us our beautiful faith, and all the responsibilities that we bear as members of His body. But, he also promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
I try to keep that in my heart when it seems like the evil one is making too much progress. Let’s bring those concerns to prayer and surrender them to God.