Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network now in the process of 'Recreation'

By Sr. Carmel Ann 

A conference of the Continental Coordinators for Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network/Eucharistic Youth Movement (The Apostleship of Prayer) was held from Jan 23 to 30 in the Jesuit Curia, Rome. Fr Jagdish Parmar SJ, who belongs to the Darjeeling Province of the Jesuit mission in India and the National Director and South Asian Coordinator spoke to Vatican News about this worldwide association.

“The eagerness of the young seminarians to work for the missions was the humble beginning of the Apostleship of Prayer in 1844 in France which later in 1896 Pope Leo XIII linked to himself but entrusted it to the Society of Jesus” he said. Since then it has become Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. Then from 1929 the Holy Father started proposing a second monthly intention, one specifically related to the missionary work of the Church. But from January 2017 Pope Francis has made it again to one intention per month which is released through his video message beginning of every month.

Continental Coordinators met in prayer and reflection to consider the promptings of the Holy Spirit as the PWPN/EYM continue the recreation of the Apostleship of Prayer which began in 2014. According to Fr. Jagdish ‘Recreation of the Apostleship of Prayer’ is to make the Pope’s Prayer intention more relevant to every Catholic family and every Catholic individual.