ASK FATHER: Do I Have To Say “Amen” For Weird Prayers of the Faithful at Mass?

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Yet another oddly inappropriate blogpost from Father Zuhlsdorf. This shows us how much Church discipline among its’ priests has changed in recent decades.
 
No comment on Fr. Z’s blog, but I will say that I am happy that in my parish the Prayers of the Faithful are pretty good. I occasionally hear prayers elsewhere, for example at Bible study, which are more of a statement than a petition, or occasionally a petition which doesn’t make sense. Then I just keep quiet.
 
Is Father Z referring to the prayers in which the faithful respond, “Lord, hear our prayer?”

Because I listen very hard during those prayers and don’t respond when some weird prayer is said. Which, to be fair, rarely happens. But I don’t want to be caught praying for something weird.
 
Most of the prayers in my Parish tend to be pretty straightforward. This isn’t exactly a massive problem in the Church, at least from my experience.
 
No, not all of us have heard “Weird” Prayers of the Faithful (now called Universal Prayer), well, because our Pastor needed some help, and along with my job in music ministry, I write them! In all the years I have never heard any negative comments, except from the deacon who may kid with me over a misspelling. However, I do use a quarterly booklet that is provided by our missal provider, keeping within the them of the Mass. There are a few choices and some I skip or rewrite and keep them short. They are written in the suggested order per Fr. Zs blog. There are a couple that are on the list every week, such as praying for those have died (especially those the Mass is said for) and for their families; and, for those can not be with us due to illness, in the military, etc. The last one is always for all the prayers we hold in the silence of our hearts. Yes, the booklet has some ones that I would consider rather weird, so I avoid them.

And, actually, we don’t say “Amen,” we say “Lord, hear our prayer.”
 
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In my parish, and most of the churches that I visited, there was never any weird prayers of the faithful. It depends on the writer of the prayers.

The parish should be sane enough to pick out any petition that is heretical and if it become common enough, should let the rector knows. The one who writes the prayers is not set in stone.

Not an issue that I know of. If it is, it must be isolated case with the particular parish.
 
As much as I love reading Fr. Z., I must say I too have heard “weird” Prayers of the Faithful only extremely rarely, since around here, the prayers are prescribed for every day of the liturgical year by an appendix to the Czech Missal and are mandatory to use (whenever the prayers are actually part of the Mass, that is, virtually every time). The almost universal custom is to add the Mass intention as the last petition and nothing else.
 
I never heard people praying in parallel to the liturgic prayers during Mass. I don’t understand how can one participate at Mass while praying something else at the same time?
When the church is empty or in front of your home icons, lamps, candles etc you can pray as you wish for as long as you wish. God is omnipotent right? You don’t need to get His extra attention during a Church service. Fr Z. makes sense here to me even though if he did not name those disruptive prayers “stupid” I think he could’ve passed a stronger message to what he was trying to say.
 
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PaulfromIowa said:
Yet another oddly inappropriate blogpost from Father Zuhlsdorf.
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Not really sure what you consider “inappropriate” in his post. Yes, there are some real whoppers out there, in terms of what’s offered during the Prayer of the Faithful. Often, we think that the good pastor wrote them himself. But, the closer I get to the liturgy in the various parishes I’ve joined, over the years, the more I realize that they’re written by others… who, as it turns out, don’t really have training in liturgy or theology. Their prayer intentions are… well… well-intended, but not always kosher, per se. 😉
This shows us how much Church discipline among its’ priests has changed in recent decades.
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The way I see it, the Church has always acted a bit like a pendulum. It swung in a particular direction 50 years ago, and now it’s tending to swing back in the other direction now. Nothing to see here… business as usual. 🤷‍♂️
 
Pulled this example from the link…

“During the prayers of the faithful, most were in keeping with the feast and had a Marian slant as you would expect, however one said (paraphrased, but not exaggerating) “We pray for Muslims, that we can come to value their understanding, faith and courage”. [Huh? “for Muslims…. that WE…”. Stupid.]”

This hit home for me because usually at our parish the Prayers of the Faithful are very, very good but once in a while there is something similar to the above that makes me pause. I think we recently prayed something about praying for Muslims and realizing we worship the same God. That gave me pause because Muslims don’t worship a Triune God. I felt awkward and unsure of whether to respond or not because something didn’t sit right with me about it.

I guess if you feel you can’t pray the response because you are unsure about it, then it’s better to remain silent rather than make an insincere prayer.
 
They are the prayers of all the faithful, not just the prayers you and I, or Father Z, approve of.

Pax et Bonum!
 
Hereiam said:
They are the prayers of all the faithful , not just the prayers you and I, or Father Z, approve of.
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I think I would assert that they’re the prayers of the person who wrote them up. We, as the faithful, pray them in good faith, expecting them to be fundamentally and theologically sound…
 
Gorgias said:
I think I would assert that they’re the prayers of the person who wrote them up
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Until we offer them up…then they become our prayers…we do not make claims that the teachings of the Gospels by the Evangelists, because we did not write them, are “the teaching of the person who wrote them up”…once these prayers become part of the Mass, prayer, not authorship is what is important, and we own them.
 
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Hereiam said:
we do not make claims that the teachings of the Gospels by the Evangelists, because we did not write them, are “the teaching of the person who wrote them up”
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No, we don’t.

On the other hand, however, we do make the claim that the Gospels were inspired by God. Last time I checked, we don’t make that claim about intercessions… 😉 👍
 
Hereiam said:
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Gorgias:
checked, we don’t make that claim about intercessions…
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Prayer is not inspired?
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Not in the way that the Gospels are. 😉

Heck, I’d make the claim that the answer is “no”, straight up! After all, even Jesus – when teaching about prayer – makes the point that, when we ask for a serpent, our Heavenly Father knows to give us what we need, and not that for which we explicitly pray.
 
Gorgias said:
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Hereiam:
They are the prayers of all the faithful , not just the prayers you and I, or Father Z, approve of.
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I think I would assert that they’re the prayers of the person who wrote them up. We, as the faithful, pray them in good faith, expecting them to be fundamentally and theologically sound…
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I think both of you are right. Once the prayer is being used in the mass, it is called the prayer of the faithful - our prayer, regardless of who authors it. Of course in reality, the prayer came from the mind of the author.

Though not a writer of the prayer of the faithful in our parish (we have one of the priests to do it, who was a writer himself), my archbishop would sometimes asked us to prepare the prayer of the faithful for some mass for special occasions.

Thus it is important for such prayer to be ‘correctly’ compiled and written because it requires people to respond, “Lord, hear us.” It would be a travesty if the congregation agree to a heretical prayer.

And if the members of the congregation do not agree to the prayer, then that prayer would lose its efficacy, because ‘you have to agree in prayer in order that it will be given’.
 
Gorgias said:
After all, even Jesus – when teaching about prayer – makes the point that, when we ask for a serpent, our Heavenly Father knows to give us what we need ,
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This is support that the prayers of the faithful at Mass, despite what our personal opinions are (see OPs comment about those making them want to knock their head on the pew), are all good…again, it is the act of prayer, if offered in charity, that is more important than what is offered, because of the Wisdom of God.
 
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