Prayer Intentions of Pope Benedict for August 2011

Apostleship of Prayer

General Intention - World Youth Day
That World Youth Day in Madrid may encourage young people throughout the world to have their lives rooted and built up in Christ.

When the United Nations declared 1985 International Youth Year, Blessed Pope John Paul II added a Catholic dimension by proclaiming the first World Youth day. Many thought young people wouldn't care and wouldn't come, but Pope John Paul proved them wrong. World Youth day has been a continuing success. This August about a million young people will gather for WYD in Madrid, Spain. The Apostleship of Prayer will be there among them.

Pope Benedict XVI is asking us to pray this month that young people throughout the world may be "rooted and built up in Christ," an echo of St. Paul's Letter to the Colossians. Not coincidentally, this year's theme for World Youth Day picks up the same passage: Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith.

Why is it so important for young people to be rooted and built up in Christ? St. Paul's letter continues, "See to it that no one captivate you with an empty, seductive philosophy." As a philosopher himself, Pope Benedict XVI well understands that the world is filled with false belief systems that promise happiness but cannot deliver. True happiness is possible only through friendship with Jesus Christ, a relationship which comes by faith.

Pope Benedict extends a broad invitation to World Youth Day in Madrid: "I would like all young people - those who share our faith in Jesus Christ, but also those who are wavering and uncertain, or who do not believe in him, to share this experience, which can prove decisive for their lives. It is an experience of the Lord Jesus, risen and alive, and of his love for each of us.

Reflection: 
How can you help young people strengthen their friendship with Jesus?

Reading:
Colossians 2:6-8  So, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one captivate you with empty, seductive philosophy.

Links

• Pope Benedict's Message for 2011 World Youth Day
• Catechesis for Pope Benedict's Consecration of the Young People of the World to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
• Official World Youth Day Site
• Magis (A pastoral experience organized by the Society of Jesus and other organizations for the days (August 5-15) leading up to World Youth Day)

Mission Intention - Western Christians
That Western Christians may be open to the action of the Holy Spirit and rediscover the freshness and enthusiasm of their faith.

We ourselves are the "Western Christians" for whom Pope Benedict asks us to pray.

Often in his mission intentions the Holy Father asks us to pray for people in Asia and Africa, places where Christianity has taken hold only recently. We have traditionally called these regions "mission territories." But more and more, because of the rise of secular belief systems, the entire world has become mission territory.

Sadly, faith is rapidly disappearing from some of the territories where missionaries first planted Christ, particularly the nations of Western Europe and our own North America. "An interior desert results," said Pope Benedict, "whenever the human being, wishing to be sole architect of his nature and destiny, finds himself deprived of that which is the very foundation of all things."

To counter Western secularization, the Pope established the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. He charged the council to help resurrect faith in countries where long-established Churches are experiencing an "eclipse of the sense of God."

"There has been a troubling loss of the sense of the sacred," said the Pope, "which has even called into question foundations once deemed unshakeable, such as faith in a provident creator God, the revelation of Jesus Christ as the one Savior, and a common understanding of basic human experiences: i.e., birth, death, life in a family, and reference to a natural moral law."

Only God's grace can reverse the effects of secularization. This month we join Pope Benedict in praying for ourselves, that we Western Christians may be open to the Holy Spirit and allow it to refresh our faith.

Reflection:
How have you experienced secularization? How can you "rediscover the freshness and enthusiasm" of your faith?

Reading:  
2 Timothy 3:1-17 Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed.

Links

• Pope Benedict's Apostolic Letter establishing the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization
• Pope Benedict's Address to the Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome on June 13, 2011
• "Disciples of the Lord: Sharing the Vision," A Pastoral Letter of the Most Reverend Donald W. Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., on the New Evangelization
• "First Preach by the Way you Live: Bishops and the New Evangelization," an address given by the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput OFMCap, Archbishop of Denver, at the 1997 Synod of the Bishops of America. (Archbishop Chaput was recently appointed Archbishop of Philadelphia.)

Prayer of the Month

Friend and Lord Jesus Christ, how great you are! With your words and works you have revealed to us who God is - your Father and our Father - and who you are, our Savior.

You call us to be with you. You are our life. May our thoughts, our love, and our actions always be rooted in you. You are our rock. May our faith in you always be the solid foundation of our life.

- Adapted from the World Youth Day website.