Someone asked me today if there were prayers besides the Rosary when you have a particular intention. The short answer is yes, absolutely, lots but I think this question is deserving of a longer answer.
The first thing I want to say is elaborated in my earlier piece on prayer, which you can read, but I want to highlight this part:
Whatever is going on in your life, your real life, bring it to him. Are you happy about something? Remember that it is a gift from him, and thank him for it. Let him know how great it is. Are you worried about something, or grieving a loss? Bring it to him. Give him your anxiety and your grief. Give him your mixed and complicated emotions. It is perfectly acceptable to say, “God, I’m worried that this thing might happen” or “I don’t understand why you let this thing happen” or “It is all too much and I can’t handle it anymore!” or “God, I just… I don’t even know. Here it is.” If you’re struggling to articulate it in words, that’s okay. He already knows what it is, and he loves you. It is more about the movement of the heart than about finding the right words.
This is the most important thing, I think: the movement of the heart is more important than the right words. Words are helpful, especially if you’re praying with other people. We can start with the experience we have in our hearts and offer that to God in words, or we can read the words of a prayer that’s been written by a saint or that is part of the tradition of the Church, and we can try to conform our hearts to those words. But I want to emphasize that it’s not about the words. It’s about raising our hearts and minds, and the things on our hearts and minds, to God.
The second thing I want to say about prayer is that it’s like diet and exercise in a couple ways. Some people find a particular program helpful; other people find a different program helpful; other people find it cumbersome to follow any program at all. When you’re doing it as a group, usually a prescribed program is easier to coordinate. So if you are thinking of a particular novena or devotion or something, remember that it’s not about the novena, just like a particular diet or exercise program is not about the program. The diet or exercise program is about health, strength, endurance, or something like that, and it only makes sense to follow the program insofar as it leads toward those goals. Likewise with prayer. It’s about raising our hearts and minds (and everything that’s on our hearts and minds) to God; it’s about adoring God, thanking him, loving him, being united with him.
So if you’re wondering whether you should do a novena or something, the first thing I would suggest is asking yourself if you want to do it alone or in a group, and whether you are generally better at things when you have an organized plan or not. Some people feel like “I need a plan, otherwise I won’t do it” or “I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing, and it would be helpful to have a plan,” and other people feel like “If I have a plan, then I’ll make one little mistake and my perfectionism will spiral out of control” and these are valuable things to consider. But you don’t need to stress about it. If you feel like you want to do a novena, then find a novena and do it. That’s enough of a reason.
There are other reasons why it might be good to do a particular devotion, and maybe someone else can write about them, but I personally think those reasons are less important.
Generally, if you want some kind of organized or programmatic prayer for a particular intention, you can just do an internet search and you’ll probably find something. You can search something like “Catholic patron saint of ____” or “Catholic novena for ___” or “Prayer to St. ____” and see what comes up. The biggest danger I see with this approach is that you might find something superstitious. I want to refer back to that other piece I wrote on prayer, and then recall that prayer isn’t a magic way to trick God into doing a thing for us. God is completely free. So if you see something with outlandish promises, or a kind of tit-for-tat approach (“If you do X, then God will definitely do Y”), then that is suspect. But there’s lots more on the internet and it’s not hard to find. You can also ask around. People who are familiar with different kinds of prayer (e.g. priests, normally) or people who have had a similar struggle may have a recommendation for you.
I would also add that if you find a prayer that feels deeply unsettling, for any reason, then you should find something else. If it’s deeply unsettling, it’s either bad in itself or it’s not the right thing for you right now. That’s okay, even if it was written by a saint.
But I want to contrast that with a challenge. Maybe you find a prayer with text like “with great confidence [we] submit ourselves to your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself” and you don’t totally feel that great confidence, but you want to feel that great confidence. Well, that’s a good prayer for you, because saying it will help you grow in that great confidence. When you say “with great confidence” and you feel a little bit of confidence and a desire for great confidence, God knows that what you mean is “help me have great confidence in you.” It’s dishonest only if you’re actually trying to hide your imperfect confidence from him. It’s a beautiful prayer if you use it to affirm “This is the goal. This is the kind of relationship I want to have with you. Help me turn my heart to you in this way.” As I said before, it’s more about the movement of your heart than the words, and saying those words can often be really helpful in moving your heart.
Once you start looking, you’ll realize that there is an absolute abundance of different novenas and chaplets and devotions and other similar things. We have 2,000 years of all kinds of people in all kinds of situations pursuing God, and generally the new material is added to the old material instead of replacing it. The Rosary is very old, the Divine Mercy chaplet is relatively new; both are very popular.
The good news is, if you don’t like something, you can find something else. The bad news is, there can be a temptation to a kind of “devotional clutter” where we feel like we have to do All The Things. We don’t have to do All The Things. God gave us this overabundance because he is overabundantly generous, giving us more than we could possibly use or need. The “all kinds of people in all kinds of situations” includes people who are like you and people who are not like you, people who needed to grow in ways you need to grow and people who needed to grow in opposite ways, people who had insights into situations like yours and people who had insights into different situations. The goal isn’t to recite the maximum number of devotional words but to raise our hearts and minds to God. Whatever is on your heart or mind, prayer is about bringing that to God. Look for the thing that will help you do that.
Well, this was a little bit rambly an disorganized, but I hope it was at least helpful.
I read once that the best kind of prayer is the prayer you actually do. It’s the same with exercise: the best kind is the exercise you actually do. Even the best kind of prayer and exercise can’t be effective if we only think about it but never do it. Also, our prayer changes as we grow older, as we grow in holiness (not always in sync), and as our life circumstances change. This should not surprise us. God has a perfect individual pedagogy for each of us, so our prayer will necessarily be unique to each of us. We can learn from the saints in Heaven and the saints on earth about what draws them closer to Jesus and pick what works for us.