Once a week, Luisa Ferrandiz gets on the phone to pray for seminarians who are studying to become priests. She has been doing this for 20 years. She and the hundreds of other elderly Catholics who participate in La Liga Orante Vocacional, the Vocational Prayer League, believe the small but steady increase in seminary students over the past years may be a result of their many prayers.

''I think our prayers are being heard,'' she says simply. ``I know it helps. The seminarians themselves ask us to pray.''

Ferrandiz, 82, began participating in the prayer league after her neighbor, Delia Berta Gonzalez, recruited her.

Gonzalez contacted lay volunteers who had once been active in their parishes but now found it impossible to leave their homes. Participation in the prayer league involved no travel or expense. All members needed were faith, a willingness to pray -- and a phone. So what started as a few dozen people praying for vocations has mushroomed into 30 communities, each with dozens of callers, fanned around the Archdiocese of Miami.

The prayer, in Spanish, was written by Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Estevez. At one time there was an English-language version, translated specifically for a nun, but now all prayer league members speak Spanish. Most are women.

In the beginning, Ferrandiz simply prayed over the phone with one of the leaders who called her. She then became one of the people who made the calls and eventually headed one of the communities. Now that Gonzalez has retired from the prayer league for health reasons, Ferrandiz has taken over the administrative work, which also includes fundraising for St. John Vianney Seminary, where the league will celebrate its 33rd anniversary with a mass in January.

Over the years, Ferrandiz adds, friendships have blossomed as a result of prayers. Weekly calls have become lifelines for the elderly praying groups.

''The persons who have been praying together for years become like family,'' Ferrandiz says. ``Many times you only know them by phone, but you develop a deep relationship with them. You talk about problems and concerns. You pray for each other.''

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