Deliver us, O Lord, from all evils and grant us peace in our days, so that, aided by your mercy, we may always live free from sin and protected from every disturbance..., prays the priest aloud during Holy Mass. In the prayer of petition we can ask for things for ourselves and for others; first of all, the goods and graces necessary for the soul. However many and urgent our material limitations and privations may be, we are always in greater need of supernatural goods: the grace to serve God and be faithful, personal holiness, help to overcome our defects, to go to confession properly, to prepare ourselves for Holy Communion.... We ask for temporal goods insofar as they are useful for salvation and insofar as they are subordinate to the former.
The Lord himself taught us to pray: Give us this day our daily bread...; the first miracle that Jesus did, by which he manifested himself to his disciples, was of a material nature. Mary appears at Cana, where, "manifesting to the Son with delicate supplication a temporal need, she also obtains an effect of grace: that Jesus, performing the first of his "signs", confirms the disciples in their faith in him". Through unity of life, all goods of a material nature redound, in some way, to the glory of God. The miracle of Cana, performed through Mary's intercession, encourages us and moves us to ask for graces of a temporal nature, which are necessary or convenient in everyday life: help to get out of a financial predicament, the cure of an illness, to pass a difficult exam for which we have studied.... "One asks in prayer to be granted a wife according to his desire, another asks for a country house, another for a dress, and another asks for food. Indeed, when there is need of these things we must ask Almighty God for them; but we must always keep in our memory the command of our Redeemer: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things will be given to you besides (Mt 6:33) ". Let us not devote the best part of our prayer to asking only for the "extras".
It is very pleasing to the Lord that we ask him for graces and help for others, and that we ask others to pray for us and for our apostolate: "Pray for me," I asked him as I always do. And he answered me with astonishment: "But is there something wrong with you?
"I had to explain to him that something happens to all of us at any moment; and I added that, when prayer is lacking, "more things happen and weigh more". And prayer avoids and relieves them.
Our prayer must be full of abandonment to God and a profound supernatural sense, because, as John Paul II said, it is a matter of accomplishing God's work, not our own. It is a matter of fulfilling it according to his inspiration and not according to our own feelings. The Virgin Our Lady will straighten out all the petitions that are not entirely upright, in order to obtain always the best. In the Holy Rosary we have a "powerful weapon" to obtain from God as much help as we and those for whom we pray daily need.
We ask you, Lord, that we your servants may always enjoy health of soul and body, and, through the intercession of Our Lady, Mary, deliver us from the sorrows of this world and grant us the joys of heaven.