Who writes the Bidding Prayers?

[HelenR]

Can anyone help me here on what happens in other churches? For years in our parish prayers have been produced each Sunday by the clergy based on a 3 year cycle with occasional variations for current affairs. The difficulty is the syntax of the prayers and the language themselves very often leave the reader tongue tied and the listener thinking when is this prayer going to end.

There has been a suggestion of asking families to take on this job and to become more involved, another suggestion is for readers to meet and write them. Having done it in the past elsewhere I can see lots of problems not least of which is having to always have back up prayers in case they don't appear? But I wondered what happened elsewhere and are there any good books I can turn to for direction and training?

thanks Helen

[Nick Baty]

I was listening to the Bidding Prayers last Sunday and, to be honest, they sounded like a news bulletin.
"We pray for the people of South Niddleswade, that their current situation, the siege with all food and water cut off, and the SAS bouncing in for tea unannounced, will come to know your peace".
Why not a simple: "We pray for the people of South Niddleswade. Lord in your mercy...."

[HelenR]

Congratulations on being one of the few who actually listen - I was reading last Sunday and by the time I got to the end I forgot who I was praying for. The only trouble is If its really short How long will I wait before the Lord in your mercy??

[NorthernTenor]

I was listening to the Bidding Prayers last Sunday and, to be honest, they sounded like a news bulletin.
"We pray for the people of South Niddleswade, that their current situation, the siege with all food and water cut off, and the SAS bouncing in for tea unannounced, will come to know your peace".
Why not a simple: "We pray for the people of South Niddleswade. Lord in your mercy...."

Helen,

I agree with Nick. Speaking as a listener, prayers that are short and to the point are more likley to go in our ears and stay there (ditto homilies).

[docmattc]

But I wondered what happened elsewhere and are there any good books I can turn to for direction and training?

There are various collections of Prayers of the Faithful available, I'm no expert on them but perhaps someone here has done a comparison. I know my brother reports that in his parish they are read from a book which he considers lousy. It has varying responses from week to week, some of which are vastly removed from the sentiment "hear our prayer".

There are ideas for intercessions in the Liturgy Planner section of Music and Liturgy. I know that is where our parish secretary turns when writing the intercesions (there is an invitation for parishioners to be involved in writing them, but its an invitation that's rarely accepted) For guidelines, there is a leaflet available from the liturgy office which might be useful.

[MaryR]

A small group (who were members of the now defunct liturgy committee) did get together monthly to writing the bidding prayers in our parish at one time. That practice died away and we now use prayers taken from a book (don't know which book -sorry) plus some extras written by our PP each week.

A good resource if you are going to write or put together your own is the St. Louis Centre for Liturgy website. It gives commentary on the readings for each week, together with suggestions for intercessions and lots of other useful information. I use the site, including the intercession suggestions, a lot to help with planning an ecumenical service I lead from time to time.

[presbyter]

Redemptorists write Bidding Prayers .... and suggestions for topical ones can be found here (if that's what you want)

http://www.rpbooks.co.uk/page.php?page=prayers

[Peter]

Our former PP used to write the intentions himself and include them in the printed service sheet given out to the congregation. At one time it was suggested it was better not to include them but give them to the reader only, but when we tried this there were protests from people who found them useful to take home and reflect on. When he was preparing for retirement I took over the task of preparing the sheets, a task I still perform, so I started by adapting his intentions from three years previously (which he had also done!). As I continue to prepare the sheets I also write the intentions, sometimes recycling or adapting old ones but often writing my own.

The principle I normally adopt is to take the four standard headings given in GIRM 69 (Church, public/world affairs, those in difficulty, local community) and see what the readings of the day suggest for each, though if there is a special collection I usually mention the charity concerned and I sometimes refer to stories in the news (not always easy to stay topical if the sheet has to be prepared a few days before the Mass). There is a book in which members of the congregation can add their personal intentions, which are also read out after the printed intentions, and there a pause is left before the priest's final prayer in which people can call out their own intentions.

Just before the previous PP retired a parishioner came up to me and said "Would it be an idea if we wrote the Bidding Prayers?" On reflection I should have replied "Who's 'we'?" but I actually answered "Would you like to join the Liturgy Committee and put that suggestion there?" She hastily declined and as no-one else from the Committee wants to do it, it looks as if I'm lumbered! To have a committee responsible for doing the job would make the task of preparing the service sheets more complicated - unless, of course, we omitted the intentions and made their production a totally separate exercise.

At another church, I noticed some biddings that weren't true "intentions" (eg "Let us pray for XYZ") but direct prayers (eg "Lord, grant us XYZ"), which I gather are not what's required. When I pointed this out to the PP he replied that there were various groups who took it in turns to prepare them and he wasn't always able to convince them of such niceties.