PSA for those who don’t already know this tip: Pick someone and pray for them a little bit every day. Indefinitely.
You can’t pray for everyone.
You can pray for the whole world in a general way, of course. But you can’t pray specifically for every person in the whole world, because there aren’t that many seconds in the day. You probably don’t even have time to say a Glory Be for each person you personally know, unless maybe you are a hermit. Most of the people that you pray for are going to be on the as-needed list — you find out about some need and so you pray for a day, or a week, or until the crisis passes.
You can pray for someone.
Now think about the people you sometimes pray for: Your good friend, your colleague with the horrible on-going problem, the lady at work who drives you insane but in the odd fit of holiness you manage to use God’s name not-in-vain every now and again for a refreshing change of pace.
Pick a secret prayer-recipient, and then pick a small prayer to pray for that person every single day. (Or: Every single day that your prayer life doesn’t completely fall apart.) Small is important because we can’t always pray as much as we’d like. So for example you might pray, “St. Clare, pray for Fr. Grumpy” every day, tacked onto a convenient lump of your daily prayer life. For example, you could add your prayer-snippet in every day when you say grace at breakfast, or when you remember to say an act of contrition before going to bed. Glory Be’s and the Jesus Prayer do very well for mini-intercession.
Then, when you have more spiritual might to add to the daily petition, you can take a little bit more time to pray for Fr. Grumpy in detail, or you can offer up on his behalf the fact that you ran out of coffee and you’re trying not to blame the person who really should have made sure there was coffee, or you can ask St. Clare to also remember Fr. Fussy, Fr. Jokey, Sr. Snuffly and Bishop Wingly. But on a bad prayer day, at least you’ve put St. Clare on Fr. Grumpy’s case, and that’s better than nothing.
The Fun Part
This is a good method for people who like to be sneaky. No one needs to know you’re praying for Fr. Grumpy. You just take your thirty seconds or your two minutes each day and give them to him, in secret, and then you get to sit back and watch what happens. Fr. Grumpy’s a tough case, so you won’t necessarily see instant results. This is spiritual warfare, not spiritual skee-ball. You’re in it for the long haul. When Fr. Grumpy is having a terrible day, you’ll be reassured that your prayers are not in vain, he really does need you. When Fr. Grumpy suddenly says something nice to you after seven continuous years of frowning at your kid during Mass, you’ll know your prayers are finally starting to crack the old nut.
The other great thing about this is that you don’t have to be any good at praying. It doesn’t matter whether your prayer life is impressively deep and wide and consistent, or if it consists entirely of a general feeling that you ought to be praying more, combined with the odd feeble attempt to do something about it. Snippet-prayers are small enough for prayer-amateurs, but, when taken on in moderation, don’t overwhelm a nearly-full vocation. Start with only one, though, because this is a daily thing. The other people you think of can fill out your as-needed-as-able prayer list.
(If you really have nothing, nothing for a prayer life, perhaps start with just a daily Our Father, a moment of quiet time talking and listening to Our Lord, and then your snippet of intercession. Don’t panic if God says nothing at all to you during your minute of listening. Maybe He just wants you to enjoy the quiet, or become aware of the noise getting in the way of the quiet. Persons are funny that way, they respond to your efforts in personal ways.)
So there you go. You can do something good for a change. Enjoy!
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