Do too many Intentions dilute the power of a prayer?

[Hubertus1]

I often have many intentions while praying the rosary, if I have too many does that lessen the strength of the prayer to stretch it over all of the intentions?

 

[CRV]

I honestly don’t know. My own rosary intentions are for all my family members - about 19 or 20 people. I just offer it for my intentions and leave the rest up to God.

Otherwise, you are probably best to ask your parish priest.

 

[Neithan]

Prayers are spiritual and not a limited resource. You may want to focus your mind on certain things that you are praying for yourself (say, some particular virtue) but God is infinite, so there can not be a limit on intentions (quantity or quality). Contemplative religious orders are made of people who want to spend their entire lives in prayer.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

This question actually comes up a lot and the answer is generally “no, the power of your prayer is not diluted”. Steve Ray answered it on a “Catholic Answers Live” show on May 8, 2008. The show is no longer available online, but his answer was preserved (On an anti-Catholic website of all places, whose gunk I have deleted) so I am cutting and pasting it here. His answer is what I would have said too, basically that God’s ways of applying prayer are very efficacious and we don’t fully know how it works but don’t need to worry about “dilution”, only he says it better.

Catholic Answers Live, May 8, 2008
A caller (Willie in Fredericksburg, TX) asked:
“I tell somebody I’m going to say a rosary for them, and then I do, and in the process I might have told somebody else, and so I end up with two, three, four people – I’m just wondering, is that diluting it some way? Or is better to say individual – well its probably better – but is it diluting it some by combining several people?”

Steve Ray responded:
I think that’s a good question, but I don’t think you have any fear of that, because if you are praying the rosary with sincere intent to pray it for several people instead of just one, the weakness would not be with you, but the weakness would be with God. And God isn’t weak. He can make sure that that prayer that you pray is responded to for each of those individuals, because God is perfectly capable of hearing your prayer and reaching out his wonderful fingers to touch 4, 5, 6, or 10 people just as well as one. And as long as its your intent to pray for them, and you say, “Lord, this person has a real need here, and this person there, and this person there, and this person there, and I only have a half an hour to pray Lord, but I really really want you to help every one of those people I’m going to pray for, so when I pray, would you please make up for any of my weakness of mind, and my weakness of memory, and you take care of them for me.” I guarantee by my little experience with God, and by knowing who He is and what He wants to do. He actually wants to help those people more than you want Him to help those people. So I think you add as many people as you want, and you pray for them, and then you watch God work in their life.

Here is another good answer from a parish webpage:

Can the Power of Prayer Be Diluted?

 

[CRV]

Thank you for posting that.

 

[Wm777]

Just to offer a different perspective…

Suppose you wrote down a list of your petitions, and suppose they grew into two lists something like the following…

#1 - Grocery Store: Buy Apples, Banana, Oranges, Bread, Milk
#2 -Today’s Errands: Grocery Store, Trip to Post Office, Fix Gate, Pick Up Kids from School, Pay Bills

If we compare them, you’ll see both have five elements… so quantitatively they are (in a general way) the same… But there’s a potentially big difference…

The intentions in list #1 is a component of List #2… List #1 is a grocery list… But List #2 is a more general to-do list of errands, which even includes List #1…

List #1 is more focused (i.e. you could probably do it all at once at the grocery store in 15 mins), but List #2 would probably take a couple of hours… so List #2 would require more patience, support and wherewithal to fulfill all the petitions…

So here’s my point…

You can ask God for a bunch of stuff, but you cannot really control what God gives you in response - so maybe it would help to put things in perspective… make sure you’ve done all you can to tend to the matters by virtue of your beliefs in concordance with free will - that is, by acting responsibly and in faith… That is using your talents…

But, if you are unable to accomplish it yourself, then place the matter in God’s hands, being prepared to accept what God will give you in return…

The Lists above aren’t really a huge, mystical petition directed at Divine intervention… They are practical prayers well within the reach of human virtues… but they illustrate a human problem with project scope, whereby - as one becomes more and more generalized - the problems becomes more and more involved… Both are possible, but List #1 is simple, while List #2 is more complex…

It’s great if you can do more and more, but just don’t burn yourself out on it… You want to drink from the rivers of living water, not to find it hard to breathe because the air becomes too thin…

And one last bit of advice, which - as an accountant - I know well… Try saying the Examen prayer while journaling each night… The nature of the Examen prayer combined with the Journal will help you discern and manage your progress toward whatever it is you are asking…

God’s Blessings to You! And may all your good dreams come true!