My Offer-It-Up Calendar

Barb Szyszkiewicz shares how she uses her planner to keep track of prayer intentions. 

Back in January, with the surgery date for my second knee replacement in six months approaching, I started paying a little extra attention to the prayer intentions that came my way. Whether someone specifically requested prayers, or simply mentioned a difficult situation they were enduring, I took a moment to write their name down. Before long, I had a good-sized list of people to keep in prayer.

Need to Remember? Put It on the Calendar

Remembering the challenges of recovering from last summer’s replacement of my other knee, I printed out calendars for a couple of months and wrote one prayer intention in the box for each date. On that day, the struggles and pain and frustration I faced would be offered up for the person listed for that date. Even if I forgot to look at my calendar on a particular day, I knew I’d covered the intention in my Morning Offering or Rosary that day.

I Didn’t Want to Stop

After my initial recovery was over, I was back at my desk for work and I found that my prayer calendar would get buried under work-related papers. But I wanted to keep going with these daily prayer intentions, so I wrote the remaining ones into the corresponding dates in my planner. And I’ve just kept going from there. After all, even though my knee is healing well, every day brings its own challenges to offer up for someone else.

If it’s someone’s birthday, that’s in my planner, and my “prayers, works, joys, and sufferings” are dedicated to that person. If someone is sick or moving to a new home, they’re listed in the planner. Moms expecting new babies are prayed for on their due date.

Keeping Track

All I write for each date is the person’s name, with a note if it’s that person’s birthday (so I can contact them to send happy-birthday wishes). There’s no detail accompanying the prayer requests, so if someone in my house happens to see my planner, they won’t see anyone’s confidential prayer requests.

There are very few dates in my planner after January 22 (the date of my knee surgery) that don’t have an intention listed in the lower-right corner. This is a practice I intend to continue. I’ve always believed this:

If someone asks you to pray for them, pray right away. Don’t wait! Then, promise to continue to remember their intention in prayer in a concrete way or at a certain time. It’s important to follow through on promises of prayer. (The Handy Little Guide to Prayer 48)

By incorporating prayer intentions into my day planner, I’m making sure to follow through on those spoken and unspoken requests for prayer that come my way.

How do you keep track of your prayer intentions?

Consider trying this with your personal planner, or use your whole family's calendar and involve everyone in adding to the list of prayer intentions.

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Copyright 2026 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Images: Canva

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