Discover the joys of prayer, urged a Jesuit priest who is the national director of the Apostleship of Prayer.

"An important part of the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer, at a time when people feel very alienated and isolated, is a way of feeling connected on that deepest level of prayer, both in the Eucharist and then as we live the Eucharist in our daily lives," said Father James Kubicki, who has been associated with the organization known as "the pope's prayer group," since 1995.

Members of the Apostleship of Prayer benefit from knowing that people around the world "are also praying for you and your intentions," said Father Kubicki, a Milwaukee native.

He was in St. Louis in January to lead retreats at the White House, a Jesuit retreat center in Oakville. He also visited with Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, Jesuit seminarians, Carmelite Sisters, Visitation Sisters and Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George. He especially enjoyed seeing the Sacred Heart shrine at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

The mission of the apostleship since 1844 has been to help Christians live out their desire to serve God. It encourages Christians to make a daily offering of themselves to the Lord for the coming of God's Kingdom and for the Holy Father's monthly intentions.

The apostleship asks people to pray every day for the good of the world. Prayer is the way to hasten the Kingdom of God on earth, said the organization, Even if people don't know how it works, prayer changes things for the better.

"Those who pray also open themselves to loving service of others ... offer yourself and your entire day as a prayer that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven," according to a statement on the apostleship's website. "Because you are one with Jesus Christ, you offer yourself for others just as he offered himself."

Father Kubicki suggests saying the "Morning Offering" and making an evening review of the day. By doing so, "you're finding God in your daily life."

The morning prayer "offers every prayer, work, joy and especially the sufferings, the things that make us impatient and frustrated," he said.

He noted that in the recently released encyclical on Christian hope, "Spe Salvi," Pope Benedict XVI "reminds us of that old notion of offering up frustrations as little sacrifices" and also points out that "every moment of our life has significance."

People should make time for the sacred in their lives, such as eucharistic adoration, personal prayer and Scripture reading, he said. "But what's also very important is to see that the moments of our daily life are not separated from that ... encouraging us to make an offering of each moment of the day to the Lord."

A 2005 synod of bishops pointed out that the Apostleship of Prayer and the "Morning Offering" are ways to live a more eucharistic life, Father Kubicki said. "The Eucharist is not something we just believe in and celebrate but is also something that we live in our daily lives."

St. Therese of Lisieux ("The Little Flower") and Mother Teresa also echoed the idea that it is not big things that are so important but "everything that we do when it's done with the Lord, for the Lord, in union with the Mass that becomes big, significant, in his eyes," the priest said.

Each year, the Holy Father gives the apostleship a list of 24 prayer intentions, two each month. One intention is general, often related to a serious worldwide problem such as AIDS or human trafficking. The other intention is missionary, having to do with the spread of the Gospel in a particular part of the world.

"What we try to do is unite ourselves with the Holy Father and what he sees as most important as he looks out and sees the world," Father Kubicki said.

These papal intentions, he noted, "help the average Catholic in a parish think more globally and think in terms of the universal Church and the needs of the world."

The apostleship began when Jesuit seminarians in France became impatient and frustrated when they were reading accounts of Jesuit missionaries in India and thought they were wasting their time when they were studying instead of out winning souls for Christ. Their spiritual director told them not to wait to be apostles and be "apostles of prayer, taking their frustrations and uniting them for the missions."

Any good that is done in the missions, Father Kubicki noted, is accomplished as a result of the prayer and sacrifices offered.