Collaborative prayer line has brought solace to thousands over last 25 years
BRAINTREE -- Denise Waterworth estimates that in the last 25 years, she has heard thousands of prayers.
She has written them all down in a series of notebooks, meticulously kept over a quarter of a century. When she picks up the phone, she hears the voices of strangers who confide completely in her. Her phone rings constantly. In an average week, she can receive 20 to 30 phone calls from people asking for prayers for themselves and loved ones experiencing illness, surgery, car accidents, suicide, mental illness, substance abuse, death, and troubled marriages.
"It's endless," Waterworth told The Pilot on Jan. 13, adding: "Nothing has surprised me. Just when you think you've heard it all, something sets you aback a little bit, but it's with God's help that we pray, and we're dedicated to it."
Waterworth has been in charge of the prayer line at St. Marguerite D'Youville Parish in Dracut since 1999, back when it was known as St. Therese and before it merged with St. Rita in Lowell and St. Mary Magdalen in Tyngsborough to form the River of Divine Mercy Catholic Collaborative. The collaborative has about a dozen "prayer warriors" who volunteer with the line.
"I think they're very faithful people, and they have a great impact," Pastor Father Richard Clancy told The Pilot on Jan. 6. "It's kind of a personal ministry. A lot of times, people are sharing very personal intentions, and there's an element of anonymity to it."
He sometimes hears reports that people's prayers have been answered.
"That gives people a lot of comfort to know that they're part of a community that prays with them and for them," he said.
The prayer line began in 1999 when Father Lawrence Chane, then pastor of St. Therese, privately told Waterworth that he had been diagnosed with cancer. She asked him for permission to start the prayer line, with Father Chane being its first anonymous client. He agreed. Parishioners were asked to pray for a man suffering from cancer, not knowing that it was their own pastor. Father Chane died in 2002.
"It just went from there, and it's still going strong," Waterworth said.
People calling the prayer line typically give their first name and their prayer intentions. The person who received the call then calls the next person on the prayer line and tells them to pray for the person, and so on. The goal is to "storm the heavens with prayer," Waterworth said.
"I'm blessed to be able to do this and other things in my church, which I love, and I'm very devoted to," she said. "I think it's made me a better and stronger person, but I don't do it for that. I do it for the grace of God."
About 12 years ago, Waterworth heard the prayers of a woman with terminal cancer. Her doctors doubted she would survive, but she recovered. Waterworth believes that the prayer line had something to do with it. Even people who do not go to church or consider themselves to be religious will call the prayer line when they are in need. For many, it is a last resort.
"It is bringing them to the thought of prayer," Waterworth said.
Every call comes with a story, and listening to them all can be difficult.
"I give it to God immediately," Waterworth said, "because he's the only one that can intercede and make things happen. Sometimes, they're heart-wrenching stories, but because of my deep faith, I believe and know that God is the only one that can help us."
Carol Devaney, who has staffed the prayer line at St. Mary Magdalen for over a decade, often prays with the people on the phone.
"Anything you can pray for, I've gotten calls for," she told The Pilot on Jan. 13.
She has gotten calls from young teenagers asking for prayers for their friends who do drugs. She once took a call from a 12-year-old boy whose friend wanted to run away from home. She could hear the worry in his voice.
"It affects me," she said. "It makes me pray more because I know there's a lot of sickness, a lot of poverty, a lot of people hurting, a lot of children hurting."
Devaney asked the boy to let her know how his friend made out. She never heard from him again. While she receives encouraging updates from some of the people asking for prayers, some of them never have closure. Their ultimate fate is unknown. She tries to remind herself that it's not in her hands.
"God knows what he's doing," she said. "He's helping these people. We're just knocking on his door."
Since joining the prayer hotline, Devaney has found herself praying more than ever before. She says Hail Marys for those on the line as she's driving.
"It kind of helps you when you're stuck in traffic," she said. "I think the Blessed Mother really listens to us."
She writes down the names of the people she prays for. The list is now in the hundreds.
"I don't say them all, but God knows who they are," she said.
The prayers are not only prayed by those on the line but are also brought before the Blessed Sacrament in St. Rita's perpetual adoration chapel. Along with taking phone calls from people in need of prayer, parishioner Natalya Poto operates the chapel.
"I really felt that God was calling me to do it," she told The Pilot on Jan. 13. "I prayed about it for two years."
She didn't think she had the time to volunteer because of her job and family.
"Somehow, God provided," she said.
Over 250 people come to the chapel for adoration each week. One of them was a man who kept watch over the Blessed Sacrament from 11 p.m. to 12 a.m. When he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, another person took over for him and prayed for him.
"It touches me that they are praying for each other so faithfully," Poto said.
After two months of treatment, he returned to adoration and told Poto what happened.
"You should have told us," she told him. "We would have all prayed."
He said he didn't mention it because the parishioners were already busy praying for other people.
"That was amazing," Poto said.
Cancer is one of the most common ailments for which people ask for prayers. Other topics change to match current events. Recently, the prayer line has received intentions for victims of the California wildfires and wars throughout the world. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, prayers came flooding in. Those prayers are close to Poto: She was born in Ukraine and came to the U.S. in 2002. Six of her cousins serve in the Ukraine armed forces.
"I still have hope," she said. "When I prayed about this whole nonsense, what's going on, one answer very clear that I had from God is, you can lose your body in war. There is so much death but at least your soul is safe."
She fulfills the prayer requests of hundreds of people, but she has also requested prayers for her cousins. She believes that Mary's intercession has protected her eldest cousin, who has served since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
"By the grace of God, he is alive," she said.
Poto learned the importance of prayer growing up in Soviet Ukraine, where her Catholic faith was suppressed.
"People are dying, but they are dying for freedom," she said, adding, "It is better to have war than to have no God."