Organize Your Prayer List: A Step-by-Step Guide

A Comprehensive Way To Keep Your Prayers Organized

“May you seek Christ. May you find Christ. May you love Christ.” -Saint Josemaría Escriva

So I’ve had this prayer chart for the last year or two. It’s on a rugged and wrinkled half sheet of notebook paper, the little binder tabs still attached.

Loved it to death, but it’s a bit outdated. Some of the people on it I don’t even remember who they are, and it’s missing new people that I’ve met but haven’t added yet.

…Ooops….

I’ve been meaning to get on this for a while so this is my excuse. I designed a pretty template on Canva to print out and up my game. Not gonna lie, I had way too much fun and way too much caffeine as I designed it.

So let me tell you a bit about how and why I designed the prayer chart in this particular fashion, as well as how to best use it.

During my first summer at Camp Gray, my friend Ronnie had a slight… or not so slight obsession with Saint Josemaria Escriva. Quite an intense saint, a tell it how it is kinda guy.

For example, in his book The Way, (highly recommend you read) he writes,

So he makes me laugh when I read him, because he is so blunt. I also love his simple message and desire; for ordinary people to lead lives of virtue and holiness.

But anyway… yes. I was reading The Way, after Ronnie recommended it and I came across the line,

And mulled it over in my head, over and over again as I sat in the Camp Gray Chapel. At first, it just felt so simple, nothing revelatory or anything. As I tried to squeeze some depth out of the line, this is what came to me.

“May you seek Christ.” -is that not the first thing every person must do. My friends who haven’t given God a second thought, or who are running in the opposite direction, this is my biggest wish for them. That even just a desire might be lit in their hearts to seek Jesus. So I wrote this down in my notebook and began to list old co-workers, friends from high school, and family members who have no desire to seek the love of God.

“May you find Christ.” -the simple and most important next step. One that is unavoidable if one is truly seeking Christ. My friends who are stuck with one foot into Christianity, one in the world were written here. The ones who wanted to go to Church, but often had some excuse when it came Sunday morning. Or the ones who went to Church most Sundays, but hadn’t cracked open their bibles in a hot second. All I can ask is that they may find Christ, and know how beautiful having a relationship with Him is.

“May you love Christ.” -this was for my closest friends. The people I knew were chasing after God whole-heartedly and desired nothing more to be in full union with Him. For even these of my friends need constant prayers as the Christian life is not easy. I often would pray that they may love Christ and love him fully.

Even the Christians who are most dedicated to God, go through all three of these phases daily. There are times we don’t seek God in the moment and instead gossip. Or times we do not find Him by missing a sign or gift. And of course, all the many times we don’t love Him well.

This quote gave me a structure, to remember the names of all I care about. And nothing is more satisfying than rewriting your list once it becomes outdated, and moving names into different categories as you reflect on God’s work.

Because believe it or not, HE DOES WORK.

Just on His own time. In His own way.

So don’t give up.

Lastly, I added a section of causes/groups I wanted to pray for daily. This included the vocation of my seminarian and engaged friends, Father John my parish priest, Pope Francis, all my campers I had over the summer, my college Newman center, the Prolife club I was apart of at school and so forth. This too was really good for me as I’m 99 percent sure those things would not get daily prayers if I did not add them to my list.

Prayer is powerful, and it’s too easy to forget to pray for others and get entangled in our own thoughts and desires without giving a thought to all those you care about. So, my challenge to you today is to make your own sheet. Take it with you to prayer and see who God puts on your heart to pray for.

As it says in Ephesians 6:18

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”

So make this list, and tuck it in your bible. My bible case has a pocket on the front that I have mine tucked in. Otherwise use it as a bookmark between the pages. Pull it out each time to pray.

To make things easier, I made you a cute little printable sheet to organize your list. Or maybe it’s because I wanted something a bit cuter than the rag-tag crinkled sheet I’ve been using.

I guess you will never know.

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Best of Luck! I truly do think this is the best way to keep people consistently in your prayers, so I hope you find this as helpful as I did.

Praying for you always,

Xoxo

Rory😊