In 1844, a Jesuit priest in Vals-près-le-Puy, France was confronted with a group of restless seminarians who were burning with missionary zeal and impatient with their studies. The priest, Francis Xavier Gautrelet, S.J., told the Jesuits in formation they could evangelize the world right where they were. “Don’t wait to be an apostle!” he said. “Be an apostle of prayer! Turn everything into a prayer for the work of the missions, for the spread of the gospel and the salvation of souls.” 

So began the Apostleship of Prayer, a long-time mission of the Jesuits now known as the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. It is the world’s largest organized prayer group and advances a threefold mission: to promote devotion to the Sacred Heart, prayer for the pope’s intentions and spiritual communion with Christ in the daily offering of one’s life for the salvation of the world. In 1890, Pope Leo XIII began the tradition of entrusting his particular prayer intentions to the organization. In 2018, Pope Francis elevated the Apostleship of Prayer from being solely a Jesuit mission to a pontifical work and approved its new name. 

On July 22, the prayer network celebrated the 350th anniversary of an event central to the group’s patrimony: the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque at Paray-le-Monial in France. The Prayer Network office of the United States, which I serve as assistant director, sent five pilgrims to the celebration, where well over 300 participants from 19 countries gathered to pray and share community. 

The jubilee celebration included Mass, personal testimonials, small group discussions, Eucharistic adoration and a festival of international singing and dancing. One of the touchstone experiences was a Way of the Heart pilgrimage through the holy sites at Paray-le-Monial. The Way of the Heart is a formation program of the Prayer Network that invites heart-to-heart communion with Jesus, leading to action on behalf of the church’s mission.

Jocelyn Marin, a pilgrim from the United States, told me she felt consoled by the companionship of great saints of the church and of her fellow pilgrims. “I am grateful to have walked in the cities and churches where saints lived and prayed and had powerful encounters with Jesus that impacted the whole church,” she said.

For 130 years, the Apostleship has offered spiritual companionship to Catholics the world over. It mailed out devotional leaflets and prayer cards to members and organized local prayer groups. In 1861, it launched a magazine, the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, which became wildly popular. At its height, 72 different editions of the magazine in 44 languages inspired readers across the world. The Apostleship sent out teams of Jesuit “mission bands,” crisscrossing continents and staging parish revivals and other similar events. It built up ongoing local youth groups and gatherings through its youth branch, the Eucharistic Youth Movement. That work continues to this day.

One of the most public-facing things the ministry does is promote the pope’s monthly prayer intention, which includes a prayer video by the pope. Disciples of Jesus believe that prayer is meaningful and effective; our continued prayers for mutual coexistence matter. Praying with the pope makes a difference in the world and in our hearts. We ask Jesus to make our hearts more like his, transforming the world one heart at a time. As our new international director, the Chilean Jesuit Cristobal Fones, S.J., has said, “When our hearts are connected to the heart of Christ, we treat others differently.”

While celebrating 350 years of devotion to the Sacred Heart and 130 years of continuous prayer in union with the pope, we recognize challenges in inviting new generations into the mission of the Prayer Network. The Messenger of the Sacred Heart is not a ubiquitous publication in American Catholic homes anymore. And while many Jesuit high school students in the United States pause for the Ignatian examen in the middle of their school day, they are likely unaware that they can begin each day with the morning offering for the salvation of souls. 

Are there new ways we can share and make relevant this beautiful devotion and ministry with the church?

Along with my colleague, Phil Hurley, S.J., the new director of the United States’ office of the Prayer Network, we see the great potential for the core message and practices of this ministry to engage the lived experience of a younger generation of Catholics. 

At the same time, the pope’s monthly prayer intention is already visible on a global stage—especially as related to the humanitarian crises that dot the world today. Since Pope Francis had already discerned the papal prayer intentions for all of 2025, Pope Leo XIV took the step of formally adopting them as his own. In August, in a world torn by war in Ukraine, Gaza and numerous other places, the pope’s prayer intention was for “mutual co-existence: that societies avoid internal conflicts due to ethnic, political, religious or ideological reasons.” This sadly included the murder, wounding, and kidnapping of dozens of young people in the Democratic Republic of Congo this summer, many of whom were members of our Eucharistic Youth Movement.

In September, the pope’s prayer intention was “for our relationship with all creation.” In the video, Leo eloquently notes that “…the world is infinitely more than a problem to be solved. It is a mystery to be contemplated with gratitude and hope.” In October the pope’s prayer is “for collaboration between different spiritual traditions.”

The Sacred Heart and the Society of Jesus 

Spiritual devotion centered around the pierced heart of Jesus has been a central theme in the church’s theology and worship since its founding. From the writers of the Gospels onward to Augustine, William of Saint-Thierry, Saint Gertrude of Helfta, Bonaventure, Ludulph of Saxony, many have illuminated the power and centrality of the heart of Christ. The practice of this devotion, which is intrinsic to the Prayer Network’s spirituality, gained a new fervor in the 17th century. 

From December 1673 to June 1675, Margaret Mary Alacoque, a young Visitation sister in Paray-le-Monial, experienced a series of mystical visions in which Jesus revealed his passionate heart, on fire and crowned with thorns. She shared her experiences with Claude La Colombière, S.J., and together they promulgated Jesus’ message about his sacred heart, burning with love for each human person. 

The Apostleship of Prayer, founded nearly 150 years later by Father Father Gautrelet, on behalf of his restless Jesuit charges, was one of the long-term fruits of that collaboration. Gautrelet wrote the traditional morning offering prayer, which expressed his encouragement to the men in formation.

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the salvation of souls, the reparation of sins, the reunion of all Christians, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father this month. Amen.

Under the guidance of another Jesuit, Henri Ramière, S.J., who formalized the Apostleship’s devotion to the Sacred Heart in 1861, the mission of the Apostleship caught fire. Farmers and young people in the countryside around Vals-pres-le-Puy began to follow its way of prayer. In just a few years, the practices of the Apostleship swept through all of France and subsequently gained millions of adherents all around the world. 


In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the church’s devotion to the Sacred Heart and reliance on the Prayer Network to pray for his intentions. In a Sunday Angelus address on June 8 of that year, he said, “Therefore, I invite each one of you to renew in the month of June his or her own devotion to the Heart of Christ, also using the traditional prayer of the daily offering and keeping present the intentions I have proposed for the whole church.” Last year, Pope Francis released the encyclical “Dilexit Nos,” a profound meditation on both the human heart and the heart of Christ as the privileged way Christians experience God’s love.

In France this summer, the International Prayer Network was grateful for the opportunity to gather in Paray-le-Monial to pray for the needs of the world.

The Jubilee pilgrim William deGuzman, told me that at Paray-le-Monial he experienced the kind of human unity that calls us out of ourselves and into mission. “Meeting other members of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network was a powerful reminder that the Lord is active and moving in the world,” he said. “Seeing so many people united in prayer and mission filled me with deep peace in my [vocational] discernment, a renewed desire to share the joy of the Gospel, and a heart on fire to keep going.”

In the United States, Father Hurley and I recently led our staff in a strategic planning process to discern how to fulfill the historic mission of the Prayer Network in ways that minister to the real needs of our brothers and sisters. How can the way of the heart heal the crippling loneliness of this country? Why does the Prayer Network exist as a distinct ministry entrusted to the Society of Jesus? What are we free and available to do as both a national and an international pontifical work? 

The entire message from Father Gautrelet to those Jesuits in formation is a fitting coda to what the the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is about:

Look, any good that is accomplished on the mission is a spiritual fruit and it needs to be watered by spiritual means. You have those means at your disposal right now. Don’t wait to be an apostle! Be an apostle of prayer! Turn everything into a prayer for the work of the missions, for the spread of the gospel and the salvation of souls.

Grace Mazza Urbanski is assistant national director of the United States office of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.