Learning to ad-lib prayers/spontaneous prayers

[ccmcmg]

I am in situations where people will sometimes ask me to offer a prayer for them, right at that moment, with them, and want me to lead the prayer. This is new to me, but I want to do it, and I want to do it in a way that honors God, and also leads the person to pray not only with me, but on their own later.

Do you have a formula or such that you follow as you learn to do this?

Mine has been:
**Father,
I come to you to ask for prayers for XXXXX. Help her with XXXXX. **
(I want to have something concrete to pray at this point here…but am lost for it at the moment.) I will generally say something about helping her on her path to God, or to know God, but it’s…disjointed, or feels that way for me. I doubt anyone else has noticed it, though.

Then I finish with the Lord’s Prayer. I have in the past used the Hail Mary, but many I’m praying with or for are not Catholic, and are actually resistant to the idea of Mary, plus, I think they like finishing with the Lord’s Prayer, as many of them know it.

Thanks for your help.

 

[oldgraymare2]

Hi cc,

I think what you’re doing sounds absolutely fine. It comes from the heart, and that is beautiful.

I think that finishing with The Lord’s Prayer is a great idea, too, and a Hail Mary is a good idea too, if you know that the person is Catholic.

 

[steymard]

Idea: learn a collect or two. You know, one of the short prayers the priest prays near the beginning of Mass?

Yesterday’s Collect (Saturday the 22nd):

O God, who grant us by glorious healing remedies while still on earth to be partakers of the things of heaven, guide us, we pray, through this present life and bring us to that light in which you dwell. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.