Maybe God has learned something from hard experience. Maybe he has realised that the gifts he wants so much to give freely to the human race are often not much appreciated, or sometimes not even wanted. Think of that rejection we call original sin, which succeeding generations have frequently copied. God still really wants to give his gifts, but now he gives them to those who really want them. And we show that we do want them by our prayers, by our repeated prayer, which God always answers.
The Apostleship of Prayer is the banding together of people all over the world to pray that God would intervene where the need is pressing or the situation desperate. They pray with the Pope. And recently they have been considering a refocusing of that prayer so that the pressing personal needs of individuals might be at the heart of their prayer.
I did the Marriage Encounter week-end some years ago. At the end of the week-end, I was deeply moved when I learned that a married couple had been praying for me all that time. I spoke with them later and thanked them for the support, which I think I experienced. Now it is being considered that people with personal needs might ask for prayers for a specific period of time.
People who discover that they have but a short time to live might want someone to accompany them in prayer for the duration of that time. Someone with a bad drink problem might be strengthened if someone accompanied them in their struggle to get free from that addiction by praying with them, and for them, over a year. They might even promise not to drink either during the time they are supporting the other in their struggle.
Again a pregnant woman who has had a history of losing her baby might well have her faith and hope supported by a prayer companion over the nine-month period before the baby is born. You can easily imagine other circumstances.
I think there is no doubt that we would all appreciate that gift of prayer for us in our time of need. For those who offer to pray for someone else, it awakens a fresh understanding of the nature of prayer and makes us aware of how we can really support those who face difficult times. It opens our eyes to the needs of others. It must be for a limited time, and privacy must be respected. Maybe we only need to know that Mary fears losing her baby in the womb, and that knowledge would be enough to unite the two of us in sympathy and support in the God who loves us both.