In our modern world, we all have a great need to find peace and quiet for personal prayer. It seems almost impossible for people to survive spiritually without speaking to God about their fears, their problems, their frustrations and yearnings, as well as their joys and moments of fulfillment.

Necessary though this prayer is, it is not enough. The church hopes that we can rise from private prayer of this sort to a spirit of concern for others, a generous spirit which reaches out in love for all our sisters and brothers in the family of God our Father. The liturgy calls us to just such a spirit.

While we can and should bring personal needs to the liturgy, needs which we should have already expressed in private prayer, we will find that in the Mass the church invites us to broaden our horizons beyond our own individual world.

In the liturgy, the church heeds the command of the Holy Spirit as found in Paul's First Letter to Timothy: "I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be offered for all men. Prayer of this kind is good, and God our savior is pleased with it, for he wants all men to be saved and to come to know the truth."

The General Intercessions, known also as the Prayer of the Faithful, are prayers for the benefit of the whole world. This prayer of the Mass is to be a generous kind of prayer, reflecting an expansive spirit which excludes no one from its concern.

The intercessions are prayed in union with Jesus Christ, who opened his arms on the cross to embrace us all and who shed his blood for every human person. They express the catholic, the universal, aspect of Catholic prayer.

Even spontaneous intentions, when allowed at Mass, should not neglect a universal concern. For example, one may be mindful of a relative who is to be operated on. This prayer could possibly be phrased in this or a similar way: "For my cousin who is to undergo surgery tomorrow and for all those who are seriously ill, we pray."

All petitions, including spontaneous or personal ones, should be voiced so that everyone hears them clearly. Vocal prayer is meant to uplift everyone, to edify us by the faith expressed in the prayer, to make us aware of the needs we should pray for and how we should address them to God. Murmured prayers at liturgy do not help us; neither do vague petitions such as "for a special intention."

A good way to prepare the general intercessions is to read the morning newspaper or to watch the news on television. If anything is calculated to make us aware of human misery and need, it is the communications media. Rather than merely being dismayed, or even entertained by dire items of news, we ought to turn them into intentions for prayer. God wants us to manifest our concern and love for others through prayer, and Jesus has taught us that there is no limit to whom we are to love and care about.

A sound Catholic mentality welcomes a petition like, "That all world leaders may put aside their political differences and work for true and lasting peace." Such a petition is devoid of a simplistic political bias which holds that our enemies are completely wrong and we are completely right and which leads to a bellicose spirit.

It should be noted that the General Intercessions are indeed prayers of petition, not of thanksgiving or reparation or even praise. There is a place for every form of prayer during Mass; the time for the General Intercessions is reserved for offering petitions for all the world.

Vincentian Father Charles E. Miller, professor of homiletics at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, and is the author of numerous books on liturgy including "Mass on Sunday, and Other Ways of Being Catholic" (Paulist Press, 2004).