“Please, don’t forget to pray for me. The appeal with which Pope Francis ends every public intervention is a now-familiar refrain for all Christians. Pray for the Pope, pray with the Pope, but how? Each one can certainly choose the way he prefers. However, a very useful instrument — not only for the most “expert” young people in technology –, can be the App Click to Pray. Today, the Pope’s Global Prayer Network launched a new version on its prayer digital platform, Click To Pray 2.0 (Beta version) is the Pope’s official prayer application, which helps to pray for humanity’s challenges and those of the Church’s mission; it is offered as a prayer proposal for the synodal process.
The Presentation
The platform’s new version was presented in the course of a press conference in which Father Frederic Fornos, S.J., took part, International Director of the Pope’s Global Prayer Network, as well as Monsignor Lucio Ruiz, Secretary of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Communication; Bettina Raed, International Coordinator of Click To Pray and Regional Directress of the Pope’s Prayer Network in Argentina and Uruguay; Juan Ignacio Castellaro, Project Manager of Click to Pray; and Patrizia Morgante, responsible for communication of the International Union of Superiors General.
Father Fornos began by telling an anecdote: “Prayer at the center of the Click To Pray synodal process has changed my prayer life. To have friends in Brazil, the United States, Italy, Spain, to read on Click To Pray that someone asks for prayer or prays in his own language to be able to share with them and to pray for this intention together creates bonds,” said Liliana. How many people witness on Click To Pray the fruitfulness of prayer in their life, the support they receive through the prayer of so many!”
Prayer: Heart of the Mission
Father Fornos recalled the Pope’s words who said that “the heart of the Church’s mission is prayer. It is prayer, the personal encounter with the Lord, in the light of the Gospel, which transforms our life and that of our communities. To pray for one another is not a waste of time, as it’s not a waste of time to be in silence beside someone we love or who is sick. Prayer is like the seed in the darkness of the earth, which will bear fruit in time.”
Since 2016, Click To Pray has been the Pope’s prayer platform, to help to pray for humanity’s challenges and those of the Church expressed by <Pope> Francis’ prayer intentions. Click To Pray will support the spiritual process of the Church’s Synod with other proposals, for instance, to pray for the local Church with the prayer intentions of the Episcopal Conferences that desire it,” he added.
The App
But how does the App work? To Pray 2.0 in seven languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, and traditional Chinese) is available for free for Android and iOS. It offers a prayer agenda with the setting up of notifications; Pope Francis’ official prayer profile; three times of prayer a day (morning, afternoon, and evening); a network prayer community, and a school of prayer with materials that help to pray.
Castellaro and Raed explained that every individual will be able to set up the schedules, receive memoranda and choose the contents and proposals for his prayer. The prayer agenda enables one to organize the times and contents according to one’s own needs. The school of prayer will have two types of contents: one to reflect further on prayer with texts, for instance, of the Holy Father’s catecheses and of the Tradition of the Church, the other with themes from global projects such as Vatican Media’s the Word of the Day. There will also be a site appositely dedicated to accompanying the synodal way with prayer.
Over 2.5 Million Users
Up to today, Click To Pray has gathered more than 2.5 million people in all the Continents. Every year more than 400,000 users pray united with Pope Francis for his prayer intentions. It’s an instrument that reaches all generations. Castellaro explained that this updating was done especially from listening to many testimonies of young people, adults, men and women that use Click To Pray to enter a daily prayer rhythm with different contents every day.
United in Prayer
Taking a cue from the pandemic, Monsignor Ruiz recalled how during the lockdown the digital culture fostered prayer: “Without focusing on the media and technologies, we succeeded in being united, in praying together and in living intensely the life of the Church, because when love is great, all means are good to live and manifest communion. Click to Pray (on App, Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube) is a good and opportune instrument for this communion because it offers a community space and support in prayer. The novelties of the new platforms propose greater interaction with various networks and Ecclesial Communities, and new possibilities to accompany in a personalized way our spiritual life.”
Instead, Patrizia Morgante recalled how “the prayforthesynod.va site will be a virtual contemplative area. We want to accompany the whole synodal way with an attitude of prayer and profound listening, an indispensable premise for communal discernment to which Pope Francis invites all the Church. From today until October 31 we will only publish the prayers that come from Monasteries of the world,” in response to a letter of Cardinal Grech. Then, from November 1, the whole global ecclesial community is invited to send prayers in different languages for publication.
Cardinal Grech: “The Right Tone for the Synodal Way”
“With your project, you are giving the right tone to the synodal way because there won’t be an ecclesial synodal way without prayer,” concluded the Synod’s Secretary-General. “Our project is a project of God; I say it with much trepidation and fear because we are touching the divine. Therefore, prayer is important. At the end of the Council, Paul VI said that he wished to stimulate the sense of the Church in catholicity. And <Romano> Guardini added that the Council was a moment of the Church that awakened the Church in souls. The Synod isn’t the Council but, perhaps, these quotations give us the courage to serve; the motive is to stimulate the sense of the Church, to reawaken the Church and the Church isn’t our project but the Lord’s. Your project invites us to stay with Him, as He invited the disciples before sending them on mission.”
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
