PRAYER - INTERCESSION
Notes and quotes from a talk given to adults who have decided to follow Jesus
by Bishop David Chislett
"As for me, far be it from me to sin against the Lord
by ceasing to pray for you . . ."
(l Sam. l2:23)
Handley Moule, the well known Bishop of Durham at the beginning of this century, told of a Sunday school teacher who had immense influence on her students. Many of them went on to become outstanding Christian leaders. Following her death, the teacher's diary was found to contain, among other entries, these resolutions:
"Resolved to pray for each scholar by name."
"Resolved to wrestle in prayer for each scholar by name."
WHAT IS INTERCESSION?
Intercession may be defined as: COMING BEFORE GOD IN PRAYER WITH SOMEONE ELSE ON OUR HEART. It is prayer turned outward to encompass the needs of others. Both the Old and New Testaments illustrate this point:
When Sodom and Gomorrah were about to be destroyed, Abraham stood in God's presence on behalf of Lot, who in the end was spared. (Genesis 10:20-33.)
The Israelites were going to be destroyed when they worshipped the golden calf, until Moses interceded on their behalf. (Exodus 32:1-14.)
Daniel interceded before God on behalf of the nation in captivity. (Daniel 9:2-3)
Our Lord tells us to "pray for our enemies" (Matthew 5:44.)
St. Paul describes his own intercessory prayer for the Church: "The God I worship spiritually by preaching the Good News of his Son knows that I never fail to mention you in my prayers . . . " (Romans 1:9.) And he asks for the prayers of that Church (Romans 15:30).
But the most significant passage in the New Testament dealing with the Church's ministry of intercession is in St. Paul's first letter to Timothy where he says:
"My advice is that, first of all, there should be prayers offered on behalf of all people - petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving - and especially for kings and others in authority, so that we may be able to live godly and reverent lives in peace and quiet. To do this is right, and will please God our Saviour: he wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:1.)
The inescapable conclusion here is that by interceding in prayer, by being in God's presence with others on our hearts, we mysteriously co-operate with God in what he is doing in their lives.
Jesus himself is our model of intercession. Writing to the Church of Rome, St. Paul says about Jesus:
"He not only died for us - he rose from the dead,
and there at God's right hand he stands and intercedes for us."
(Romans 8:34.)
And the writer to the Hebrews says:
". . . he is living for ever to intercede for all who come to God through him."
(Hebrews 7:25)
As Michael Ramsey, 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, points out, the picture of Jesus as our High Priest interceding for us helps us to understand the nature of intercession in general. Speaking to a group of ordinands, Ramsey says:
". . . When we say 'he lives to make intercession' we note that the verb which we habitually translate 'intercede' means literally not to make petitions or indeed to utter words at all, but to meet, to encounter, to be with someone on behalf of or in relation to others. Jesus is with the Father; with him in the intimate response of perfect humanity; with him in the power of Calvary and Easter; with him as one who bears us all upon his heart, our Son of Man, our friend, our priest; with him as our own. That is the continuing intercession of Jesus the high priest.
"Now we can begin to see what is our own role as men of prayer, as intercessors. We are called, near to Jesus and with Jesus and in Jesus, to be with God with the people on our heart."
This reminds us of the Old Testament picture of the High Priest, who, with his other priestly robes wore a "breastplate" into which were placed twelve stones. Each stone represented one of the tribes of Israel. When he went into the Holy of Holies to meet with God, he was not there primarily for himself, but "with the people on his heart", for their forgiveness and blessing.
Because Christian prayer is made "in the name (character, spirit) of Jesus, who intercedes for us",
" . . . This rules out all selfish requests and every suggestion that prayer is a kind of magic by which God's attention can be caught or his will influenced. The essence of prayer is not asking but offering, not self-seeking but self-dedication: 'not my will but thine be done." (Alan Richardson)
INTERCESSION AND OUR DAILY PRAYERS
For most of us there are two dimensions to the prayer of intercession.
The first is to be disciplined and organised. We should adopt some kind of list system whereby we intercede for the needs of the Church and the world, rather than lapsing into a 'hit and miss' approach. On this list we should place the names of people with special needs, the sick, the poor, the bereaved, the distressed, and those who have died. There is so much to pray for . . . the coming of God's kingdom in the hearts of men and women, the growth in love of God's Church, the unity of that Church, our national leaders, our children, parents, families, friends, fellow parishioners. We might spread our list over the week so as to avoid rushing through a long list of names each day without recollection.
The second is to allow the Holy Spirit time to give us 'burdens' of prayer'. That is, if we place ourselves in God's presence for others, various names and needs (sometimes halfway around the world) will spring to mind, and we are able to hold these before God, that his will be done. Not everybody has time for this kind of prayer every day, but we could all spend a little time on a regular basis, sitting quietly in God's presence for others, allowing names and needs to surface in our consciousness and seeking God's blessing for them. Remember: it's not even necessary to "say" anything to God at all . . . we are simply with him on the behalf of others.
Some people wonder if intercession is really worth the time and effort. I can do no better then to quote at length from one of John Henry Newman's sermons on the subject:
"Is anyone then desirous of gaining comfort to his soul, of bringing Christ's presence home to his very heart, and of doing the highest and the most glorious things for the whole world? Let him praise God; let him pray; especially let him intercede. Doubt not the power of faith and prayer to effect all things with God. However you try you cannot do works to compare with those which faith and prayer accomplish in the name of Christ. Few are rich; few can suffer for Christ; all may pray. Were you an apostle of the Church or a prophet, you could not do more than you can do by the power of prayer.
"Go not then astray to find out new modes of serving God and benefiting man. I show you a more excellent way. Throw yourself out of your own selfish heart; pour yourself out upon the thought of sin and sinners; upon the contemplation of God's throne, of Jesus the mediator between God and man, and of the glorious Church to which the dispensation of his is committed.
"Aspire to be what Christ would make you - his friend; having power with him and prevailing. Other men will not pray for themselves. You may pray for them and for the general Church. And while you pray you will find enough in the defects of your own praying to remind you of your own nothingness and to keep you from pride while you aim at perfection."
In other words, interceding for someone or about some situation really does make a difference. We are with God on their behalf and hold them up to them for his love and blessing. We co-operate with him, becoming co-workers with him in what he is doing in their lives.
Why God has chosen to use us in this way is one of the mysteries of the Faith. (It would seem to be far simpler for him to just do what he wants on his own!) But the Scriptures assure us, and the Church teaches us, that he has chosen to use our prayers and intercession in union with prayer and intercession of Jesus our great High Priest to advance his plan and purpose. At least part of the reason for this is that salvation is all about GROWING IN COMMUNITY, and the kind of love that is necessary for that to take place can only be nurtured by unselfish prayer.
THE MASS - JESUS' INTERCESSORY SACRIFICE
The apex, the pinnacle of the intercession of the people of God is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For it is in the Mass that we are caught up into the movement of our Lord's self offering. Too often we approach the Mass selfishly, as something to be "used" for our own spiritual blessing. We forget its intercessory aspect. In Elements of the Spiritual Life, Fr. Harton said:
"A great wonder of the Holy Sacrifice is that our Lord allows us to offer him, to plead his sacrifice and apply it to individual things and needs."
In this way we participate in the "summing up" or "adding up" of all things in Christ. Each time we go to Mass we should take in our hearts someone for whom we have determined to pray in union with our High Priest's intercessory sacrifice. (In traditional language this is called our "intention.") We hold the person in our hearts throughout the liturgy in faith, knowing that in this way we co-operate in God's plan for them and that he is blessing them and meeting their need.
At the time of World War I, Father John Albery, Rectory of Christ Church St. Laurence in the heart of busy Sydney, wrote these words in his monthly parish paper dealing with the intercessory side of the Mass:
''Let us see to it that day by day through the year,
in the midst of business and the rush of constant traffic in the streets,
intercession may go up from our Altar every morning.
Though they know it not, this daily sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving
may be bringing many blessings to the thoughtless thousands
who hurry past the Church doors every morning to their work.''
The same principle still holds true for us today in our community life. For we offer the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus every day, not just because we are catholic Christians, and not just to praise God (although that would be reason enough!) We do it also for the blessing of others, for those whose lives touch ours, and for all people according to their needs. More really should be at weekday Masses, but the fact remains that the small handful who do come during the week join themselves to the intercession of Jesus, our Victim and Priest, for and on behalf of those who do not or cannot come themselves.
I want to finish tonight with a famous quote from Dom Gregory Dix. This has been described as one of the most notable pieces of English prose written in the twentieth century. It very beautifully sums up the intercessory nature of the Mass:
"Was ever another command so obeyed?
For century after century,
spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth,
this action has been done,
in every conceivable human circumstance for every conceivable human need,
from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it,
from the pinnacles of earthly greatness
to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth.
Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning
and for criminals going to the scaffold;
for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church;
for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat;
for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die;
for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America;
for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover;
in thankfulness because my father did not die of pneumonia;
for a village headman much tempted to return to fetish because the yams had failed;
because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna;
for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike;
for a son for a barren woman;
for Captain so-and-so, wounded and prisoner of war;
while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre;
on the beach at Dunkirk;
while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church;
tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows;
furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk;
gorgeously, for the canonisation of St. Joan of Arc
- one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this,
and not tell a hundredth part of them.
And best of all,
week by week and month by month,
on a hundred thousand successive Sundays,
faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom,
the pastors have done this
just to make the plebs sancta Dei
- the holy common people of God."
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