In view of this attitude of real concern that we must have for our contemporaries struggling with the countless difficulties of daily life, many Christians could be scandalized by another form of prayer: at times, it may be that the best way of praying for others is to forget them.  When we accept the deep poverty of this latter form of intercession, are we really betraying the expectations of our fellow men, or are we not, rather, responding in an eminent way?

Let us read again the words of Paul VI to the Prior of the Grande Chartreuse in his letter ‘Optimam Partem’:

It is the interest of the Church that the order of Carthusians should remain very much alive; that its members, wanting to give God the honor which is due to Him, continually devote their whole strength to adoring Him.  Through this pure and single-hearted worship, the Order is not only giving a sure and most valuable support to Christian people, but it is giving great help to others too, who are seeking the road to life and are in need of divine grace.  For contemplation and continual prayer must be considered as tasks of primordial importance, carried out for the good of the whole universe.

The pope’s teaching is clear; our (Carthusian) task is to adore God, to contemplate Him; if we are doing this in all truth, then we are fulfilling integrally our role of intercession.  Is this not what Jesus had taught?  ‘When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him’ (Matthew 6:7-8)

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…’By devoting ourselves (Carthusians) exclusively to God we exercise a special function in the Church’….Our (Carthusian) prayer is the accomplishment of a public role that has been officially entrusted to us.  This does not mean that we are civil servants comfortably carrying out our job; it means that we are the Church at prayer: our prayer is the prayer of the Church recollecting herself in silence and coming together in the presence of God.  We bear within us the burdens of the world.  Our own weakness is the sign, only too visible, alas, of the weakness of all of humanity; our own sins make it easy for us to be in solidarity with the sins of the whole world; our confidence in God’s love cannot be limited to what concerns us personally, for our faith teaches us that in Christ we are all one in our journey to the Father.  This realization should exercise every temptation to esteem ourselves superior to anyone else; our cry to God, and the grace we receive from Him, have the dimensions of the Body of Christ in which all humanity is gathered into one, from Adam to the last of the redeemed. –‘The Wound of Love’ A. Carhtusian