Each month, the Holy Father asks us to pray along with him for his Prayer Intentions. From this year, there is a pre-planned Prayer Intention for each month.
A second, Urgent Intention will be announced each month by the Holy Father at the Sunday Angelus, with the hope that all the faithful will join in prayer for his urgent concerns and challenges, and with the desire that these intentions will lead to rapid action in response.
The idea is that through praying for the intentions our hearts are opened up to the possibility of real, concrete charity and mercy; or, in a word, action. Pope Francis has made it clear that he sees these urgent intentions as a way of ‘breaking us out of the culture of indifference’.
The Holy Father’s Prayer Intentions for January are:
Pope’s Prayer Intention: Christian Unity: That all Christians may be faithful to the Lord’s teaching by striving with prayer and fraternal charity to restore ecclesial communion and by collaborating to meet the challenges facing humanity.
Urgent Intention: Homeless People Affected by the Cold: That in these days of such great cold that we think of all the people living on the streets, affected by the cold and by the indifference of others. We pray for them and ask the Lord to warm the hearts of others to help them.
The pre-planned Prayer Intention can be found in the Liturgical Calendar of the Year Book. Both Prayer Intentions for each month will be posted on the Pope’s Worldwide Network of Prayer website at http://www.apostleshipofprayer.org/, where additional prayer resources and reflections around these intentions can also be found.
