Empowering Our Intercession

There are so many people to pray for, many suffering souls who need our prayers; our loved ones who may be afflicted with various illnesses, or people who live in the darkness of sin, or enslaved by some addiction, or some other temporal or spiritual problems, even people we don't personally know. Knowing their miseries moves us to compassion, and we would want to help. But sometimes the only thing we can do is pray for them. Yet we sometimes wonder, "how much can my prayers help? How effective?" Then we realize that the strength of our intercession (praying on behalf of another), comes from two things: first, our genuine concern and love for the person/s we're praying for; and secondly, the degree of our holiness, that is, our closeness to God.

Genuine concern does not necessarily mean we emotionally feel it, though emotions do intensify our concern. Hence parents’ prayers for their children do have special efficacy. But let us remember that supernatural charity is in the will. We can strongly will the good of another, even those who have wronged us, as we pray for them, which is even more meritorious. To love even our enemies, by wishing them well (benevolence) and praying for them is a demand of christian perfection.

As regards our closeness to God, our very desire to intercede efficaciously for others is itself a motivation for us to strive for holiness with sky as the limit. And since it is a given that sacrifices do empower our prayers, then for starters, we can offer a sacrifice of a humble and contrite heart, strongly detesting all sin, in thought, word, deed, and ommision.

Worried that you are not yet holy enough to intercede? Our sincere resolve is surely pleasing to God, and seeing it He will build us up as long as we do our best to cooperate with His grace. Already this empowers our intercession for others. For "the prayer of a just man is strong indeed” (James 5:16).

Still we may be inclined to doubt the efficacy and power of our intercession. So then let us take advantage of the 'Communion of Saints', asking the Intercession of the Saints, especially our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, develop a relationship of friendship with them, honoring them and invoking their help, for they are closest to God. We surely can intercede by asking the intercession of other Intercessors.

Most of all we ask Jesus to intercede for us. Now that might confuse us. Yet the Catechism says that Jesus ascended into Heaven there to constantly intercede for us with the Father. Let St. Augustine clarify this seeming problem via the mystery of Incarnation–Jesus being God- Man. “He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us.” At Mass Jesus intercedes for us, offering himself on the Cross in sacrifice to the Father. We, too, ought to intercede for others, lifting up those we mean to pray for at Mass, leaning on the intercession of Jesus, our High Priest.

So there we have our great model Intercessors– Our Lord, our Blessed Mother, and the Saints. Jesus as man is the closest to the Father, for He is one with Him and the Holy Spirit (Blessed Trinity), and loves us infinitely. Then we have our ‘Immaculate’ Blessed Mother who of all men and women has the greatest love for us, her children. We also have our friends in Heaven, the Saints who love us because of their love for God. We can be sure of their sincere concern for our total well-being now that they are confirmed in glory. They are our models in terms of love and holiness which empower our intercession.

May we then constantly intercede for one another, even with just one “Hail Mary”; Our Lady is ever desirous to assist and intercede for us even if we are sinners, provided we have the sincere desire to repent and amend our lives. As a practical advice, we can make a list of the many persons we have commmited to pray for, including souls in Purgatory. And perhaps during our morning offering we can take a quick glance at our list and lift them up to God, in addition to special individual mention when we get the chance. We can also remember specific persons when we have the opportunity to offer even little sacrifices for them. Needless to say, in all these, intention is the key.

Truly the prayer of intercession gives us the opportunity for limitless acts of charity, which surely expands our hearts, making it grow in love of God and others. All these help ease our many burdens in this our earthly pilgrimage, as we assist one another to Heaven. No matter what.... life is beautiful. For God takes care of us, as we take care of each other, praying for one another.