Origin - PRAY FOR OUR TEENS

POPE FRANCIS AND THE YEAR OF MERCY

Pope Francis asked

to leave a legacy of the year of the Divine Mercy ended in November 2016.

to reintegrate into our communities the forgotten elderly who “stand at the edges of our great avenues, in our streets, in deafening anonymity.”

to be the Hand of God given to young people
“God has created us to be on our feet. In climbing, the important thing is not to not fall, but to not remain fallen! To have the courage to pick oneself up, to allow oneself to be raised up by Jesus. And His hand is often given through the hand of a friend, through the hand of one’s parents, through the hand of those who accompany us throughout life. Jesus Himself is present in them. So arise! God wants us up on our feet, ever on our feet!”

to be close to all those who suffer
“When you approach each sick person, have peace and joy in your heart, which are fruits of the Holy Spirit. It is always Jesus on that hospital bed, present in the person who suffers, and it is He who asks for help from each one of you.”

We want

to use the power of the prayer of the elderly and the housebound to help our young people stand up for themselves and say “no” to the death culture by finding genuine love, giving themselves, encountering friends who really care about them, using their unique talents, being able to choose the good and rejoice in real freedom, pursuing courageously their dreams even if they swim against the flow and receiving the love of Jesus every day.

to help parents and Godparents in their mission to educate their children. Especially when they feel really worried and struggle to trust.

to be at the side of the lonely when they are dying.

CLOTILDE'S EXPERIENCE

Clotilde has been visiting a nursing home for many years to bring Holy Communion.
She has experienced how much elderly people could feel isolated and useless. Reading sad news on the newspaper or watching low value TV was not helping them to hope for the new generation nor giving them enough reason to “rejoice in the Lord” either.
They felt far from the parish, even if the actual building was very near.

On the contrary, she has met in the same place with very inspiring elderly people -Georgina, Sam, Monica, sister Janina are a few examples- who were constantly praying and were very often full of happiness even if their external circumstances were not better than the other ones.

This led her to reflect on how it would be possible to send more elderly people on a mission to pray.

Clotilde is also a mother and has had 6 teenagers. As all mothers, she went through some difficult times of questioning and worries and she relied on intense prayer at times when her adolescents underwent the demanding phase of emotional and physical maturation. It has been a great reassurance for her to know that someone was praying and offering his/her sufferings for them. She is grateful for the elderly people who had “adopted” her teenagers and were asking news regularly at that time.

As part of her work as a personal development coach, she has also met with troubled young people, recovering addicts and homeless women and has realised how much an early intervention can be crucial.

She has been at the side of her grandmother, her baby daughter and her father when they were dying. Those moments have deeply changed her life.

All this,

brought regularly at the foot of the Lord,

inspired her

to connect teenagers and elderly or housebound people through prayer.

SAM'S TESTIMONY

One day Clotilde had the intuition to ask Sam, an elderly Caribbean man who was severely disabled and lived far away from his family, to pray for a girl who had leukaemia. He did so daily for several months. He had a photo of her and Clotilde would update him on her progresses when visiting to give him Holy Communion.

Each time he would greet Clotilde by asking her: “how is my little girl doing?” Thank God the girl made a full recovery from her illness. Her mother visited Sam to thank him for his prayers. Sam was over the moon to meet with her and the mother very moved to see him. It gave all those involved such warmth and purpose.

It was so simple but meant so much!

DOM THOMAS' BLESSING

The very best we can do for another person is to pray for them, because to pray for someone is to actively commend them into the all merciful and all loving hands of God our Father.

The “Pray for our Teens” initiative will bring blessings to our teenagers, as their joys and sorrows and difficulties are brought before the mercy of God in prayer.
It will bring blessings to those who do the praying, as they take part in such a vitally important work.

The knowledge that those they love are praying, and being prayed for, will be a blessing to parents and all those who care about today’s teenagers.

I highly commend to you this wonderful and practical living out of that web of loving connections we call the Communion of Saints.

Dom Thomas Stapleford O.S.B.
Ealing Abbey