Q: What do you think of the practice of including a ‘generic’ intention in the Prayers at Mass. Here is an example I’ve seen:
We bow our heads and remember in silence our own personal intentions and the intentions of those who have asked for our prayers. We pray to the Lord.
Is that too personal an intention for what are community Prayers of the Faithful ?
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A: It’s become very popular, but you raise an important point. These are prayers in which the gathered body prays in unison for universal intentions, so it’s not the best practice, though not exactly an abuse either.
Interestingly, GIRM 54 says that the silence following “Let us pray” and before the priest reads the collect is partly for this purpose: so that all may call to mind their intentions. That’s when the revised liturgy imagined that those intentions would be “collected” and why silence is really important right there.