Prayers for little known people

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Has anyone sort of “adopted” someone they don’t really know for whatever reason (favors recieved, attraction to them, a kind gesture they performed for you etc…) even though you may not really ever be a freind of them?
I know to pray for my friends more, but was wondering if anyone ever just picked someone for a reason, and kept them as a person to pray for in their intentions all of the time?
Any thoughts on this?
 
Brother Ernest, a Franciscan, told me he always prayed for people sitting on his left and people sitting on his right. He didn’t know them but he always made it a point.

Sometimes I would see him at Mass and smile to myself because the lucky people alongside him had no idea they were getting blessings.

There is one girl I didn’t know that I pray for. She was paralyzed in a wheelchair and very angry. I heard her yell at someone and then later ask their forgiveness. It was very moving. Less than a year later she died. I always pray for her.

God Bless You Pope Benedict XVI!!!
 
Yes I do. Sometimes I’ll know a first name, sometimes no name at all. I work with the public and come across all sorts of suffering people. Sometimes it’s acquaintances at work, at the kids’ school, at my husband’s work. I have high school friends that I pray for and others I pray for that I know probably have no one else praying for them. I feel like it’s my little secret present for them between me and God (if that makes any sense).
 
There was, at a time, a somewhat popular bumber sticker: “Practice Random Acts of Kindness”. Since then, I have a personal habit: Practice Random Acts of Prayer. :gopray2:
 
I forgot to add that I also pray daily for people here at CA forums. Some posters have such sad situations and my heart just breaks for them. I add them to my daily prayers as well.
 
Every morning I offer my day to God and in that offering I ask God to Bless, help and bring in faith everyone I see and everyone I speak to and their families. So that’s an awful lot of people in one day and most of them I don’t know.

If I’m on the bus I’ll ask God to bless, help and bring in faith to Him everyone who gets on that bus that day. All the passing meetings and conversations at tills etc are all blessed by God and my prayer carries to everyone, in this way, in everyday and their families.

I pray for the Church entire, for the world etc everyday

I can’t even estimate how many people in a single day I pray for, the number is huge I imagine and most of them I don’t know personally.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
It would be interesting to see somehow what our prayers actually do for a particular individual.

I think of it like one of those sponser a child programs where you give money to someone you don’t know any more about than there name and a few miscellaneous things…but in this case it is just picking someone to pray for.

My friends wife grew up in El Salvador and her sister was "sponsered by someone through one of those programs…I always thought they were a scam, but she said it actually works and her sister is now a US citizen and living and working like any other middle class type person. That’s why I think it’d be neat to hear what prayers do also…
 
What an interesting question! I was just thinking about this today, feeling odd for doing this very thing!

I’ve spiritually “adopted” quite a few souls I barely know. Some of them are people who attract me for whatever reason (usually a deep love of God and some similar life experience), while others are people who have caused me or a loved one great difficulty. I pray for all souls, but for them specifically.

It’s ever so nice to know I’m not nearly alone in doing so. I’m young in my faith and so, sometimes, a little unsure!
 
years ago I started praying for a little boy and his family who attended our church, he was at first helpless and had to be carried, then progressed to a walker, then braces, then by about 10 was able to walk fairly well, He had CP and I later found out he was born with only a rudimentary brain, had not been expected to live, or ever to learn or to function normally. He was placed with this foster family as an experiment. Against all expectations today at age 18 he has attended regular school in a special class, works in a sheltered workshop and at a riding stable, walks, converses, does household chores, plays basketball. About 10 years ago I became friends with his foster mother and this relationship is spiritually supportive for both of us, although now it is long-distance. A remarkable family and a remarkable story, God is good, all the time.
 
I learned a lesson about this about 15-20 years ago. I went to a church meeting–not local, a whole group of churches were meeting together. We all had name tags…
This elderly lady was standing near, & read my tag, & exclaimed, “You are that child!! I never knew what happened to you!!”…I was nearly killed when I was small. My father died saving my life, & I nearly didn’t make it anyway. This woman,( who didn’t even know my family), had heard about me, & she & her husband had “adopted” me in prayer.
She was so excited…she had never heard how I was. She died not too long after I met her. I have come to believe that meeting her was sort of meant. It taught me to pray for people that I just can’t get out of my mind for whatever reason…
I think whenever we feel these little “nudges”, it is a good time to stop & pray…We may never know the whole story. But we are meant to pray, like those 2 people did for me…
 
Are there religious orders that have perpetual prayer? Can’t recall when or where I heard that there are. There have been instances when I found this comforting. Prayers were being said for folks like me in my circumstance. Wonderful and God Bless them!
 
My constant prayer is for all the lonely unloved people and for all souls in Purgatory.
 
Mercy Alvarenga:
What an interesting question! I was just thinking about this today, feeling odd for doing this very thing!

I’ve spiritually “adopted” quite a few souls I barely know. Some of them are people who attract me for whatever reason (usually a deep love of God and some similar life experience), while others are people who have caused me or a loved one great difficulty. I pray for all souls, but for them specifically.

It’s ever so nice to know I’m not nearly alone in doing so. I’m young in my faith and so, sometimes, a little unsure!
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Yes, it is good also to know I am not alone in this either!
I just recently started thinking of it because of what I heard my friends wife say (in my previous post on this thread) about those sponser programs.
I think they way it starts is when I see someone and worry about them and after bringing them to Our Lord, perhaps He keeps encouraging me so gently to pray for them, so I thought about adopting them spiritually.
There is a prayer to St. Joseph for the conversion of a particular soul that is nice for this.
It is neat to pray for a particular soul’s salvation…and also, for their purity as well.
One thing I also considered is “adopting a priest”…either a particular one I know, or just a priest that Jesus chooses for me…and every day bring them to Jesus that priest.
I think of it as God “issuing” particular souls to us to pray for because he knows how are hearts feel about them even if we don’t know them…and therefore, our prayers will be very beneficial since we may have a particular attachment to them or and affection for them that allows us tho think of them always (be better disposed to pray for them if that makes sense???)…even if it seems selfish at first (as if we exclude anything/person), it can turn into a beautiful devotion.
 
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Zooey:
I learned a lesson about this about 15-20 years ago. I went to a church meeting–not local, a whole group of churches were meeting together. We all had name tags…
This elderly lady was standing near, & read my tag, & exclaimed, “You are that child!! I never knew what happened to you!!”…I was nearly killed when I was small. My father died saving my life, & I nearly didn’t make it anyway. This woman,( who didn’t even know my family), had heard about me, & she & her husband had “adopted” me in prayer.
She was so excited…she had never heard how I was. She died not too long after I met her. I have come to believe that meeting her was sort of meant. It taught me to pray for people that I just can’t get out of my mind for whatever reason…
I think whenever we feel these little “nudges”, it is a good time to stop & pray…We may never know the whole story. But we are meant to pray, like those 2 people did for me…
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What a great story!

I often feel these little “nudges” to pray for somebody. When I think out of the blue of someone I once knew, I try to remember to say a prayer for that person. There are a few people I’ve never met, but who I heard about that for some reason I feel compelled to pray for. I’ve “spiritually adopted” children who are at risk for abortion without knowing anything about them, but simply trusting God will hear my prayers. I think we will someday know the whole story about these people we are inspired to pray for, but unlike the woman in Zooey’s story most of us will have to wait until we meet God face to face.
 
It is noble to pray for anyone!
I’d recommend that you keep the same people for the most part, but rotate people in Novenas, rosaries etc. and even tell Jesus you are bringing that soul to Adoration or Mass with you since they can not be there with you physically.

The idea of adopting a priest or religious person is a good idea.
 
Tons! If I see someone that I think could use a prayer (tired mother, the down and out, anyone) I “add” them to my list of intentions that includes all those that may have noone to pray for them, whether they need ongoing prayers, or just something to get them through. I have had many times, too many to count, when I would like to think someone senses my need and prays for me.

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If I see someone that I think could use a prayer (tired mother, the down and out, anyone) I “add” them to my list of intentions…
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On behalf of tired mothers everywhere, thank you.:yawn:
 
Hello-

I usually pray for the Holy Souls, and I find myself dedicating those prayers usually to those who have no one left to pray for them.

After working ER for years I pray for those I have cared for who did and didn’t make it as well.

JXM
 
I frequently pray for people I don’t know well – it could be someone I’ve heard needs prayer, or people I only know from the internet, for example.

I like to do this, because it is something I can do – many of the typical “helping people” activities are closed off to me, because my free (non-working) time tends to come at very peculiar hours of the day. But prayer is possible at any time of the day.
 
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