Q: I have always enjoyed reading the responses in your blog and I come to you today eager to hear your response to my question. Our parish is preparing to roll out our Stewardship Campaign in the month of October. I have been asked to replace the closing prayer of the General Intercessions with the Stewardship Prayer. I’m having some anxiety over this as I believe the Stewardship Prayer is a ‘stand alone’ prayer that can be prayed after the creed. I’d be happy to get your thoughts on this and placement of the prayer in the liturgy.
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A: It’s not ideal, but I admit that I’ve done the same thing. For a period of a few weeks of a campaign, if the organizers want everyone to recite a prayer together, I have let them do it. But really, this is what the petitions are for. When you include a petition in the Universal Prayer for the campaign, and the people answer, “Lord, hear our prayer” or something equivalent, then they ARE all praying for the intention. That is how the Universal Prayer is designed.