Called To The Mystery Of Intercessory Prayer

One night I awoke and felt a deep sadness. As I reflected on where this was coming from, I realized it was from the news items I had read the day before on the number of abortions that have been committed in the past 25 years around the world and the campaign at the U.N. to make abortion on demand a human right. I grieved for the innocent lives in danger and those that have been taken, but as I did so, it was if the Lord was telling me “The little ones are safe within My embrace, grieve and pray for all those involved in this grave evil. They are in danger of losing more than their life.” I felt again the call to intercessory prayer, a call that grows stronger every day.

I venture to say that intercessory prayer is a mystery. We know that Jesus is our great Intercessor before the Father. Hebrews (7:25) tells us that he lives now in glory to make intercession for us. We know that in our Lady we have a great intercessor who takes our petitions to Her Son on the throne of mercy. We know that one role of the saints in heaven is to intercede for those of us on earth who turn to them for help. St. Therese, the Little Flower, said that she would spend her heaven doing good on earth. And finally we know that we can intercede for others in prayer before God. We can probably define intercession and explain how to do it but what we don’t know is how it becomes a transforming moment of grace in another’s life and why God wants us involved in this process. That is the Mystery!

Without understanding it, I believe deeply in the power of intercessory prayer. I have placed before God the needs of my family, my friends and everyone that my life has ever touched in the last 75 years, asking for them the grace of conversion so that I may see them again and share the joys of heaven. I have come to realize that by doing this, I have accepted responsibility in part for their salvation. I am charged now by God to pray and sacrifice for them. It’s as if God is saying to me, “If you want me to intervene with my Divine Providence in the life of all these people and arrange things so that they come to full conversion, what are you willing to do for them?” My prayers, fasting, suffering and sacrifices are not too much to offer for them and are the greatest gifts that I can give them. God the Father revealed to one mystic that He places in each family an intercessor for the other members of the family to help Him bring them to salvation.

It is not just for the living that I am interceding. Many of my family, friends and people from the past are now dead. My prayers which go into the realm of God, the realm of eternity can be retroactive. My prayer today can help my Uncle Louie who struggled alone in Washington D.C. battling the demons of alcohol and loneliness that eventually led to his death alone somewhere in the street. They can help my grandfather’s sister who hid in a chicken coop to evade the Nazis ravaging the farms in Poland during W.W. II and was later found dead. It is my certain faith that God's grace intervened in these situations because of my prayer today, helping them face the darkness. One day, I will know when we meet heaven. And most certainly my intercessory prayer for the souls in purgatory can help those of my family still waiting in the vestibule of heaven, being fitted for their wedding garment before joining the heavenly banquet.

I dare say we have a greater scope for our intercessory prayer than many saints of the past who had limited knowledge of the suffering around the world. In this age of worldwide instant communication, we are confronted with the needs and suffering of the people's of the world. Just as I became aware of the grave abortion situation in the world, I can know of the young boys who live in the sewers of a South American city trying to survive, of the children dying of malnutrition in Africa, of the Christians being beheaded by Islamic terrorists in the Middle East, of the millions of refugees of wars and conflicts around the world. Without grace we can’t hold all these in our hearts.

Plumbing the mystery of intercessory prayer led me to an even wilder consideration. Because the knowledge of the past is readily available on the internet, I can know of the millions who have died in the wars of history, the genocides that have occurred throughout history, the suffering of people during the invasions of barbarians, the plagues, the Islamic Wars, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the immense injustices of the world that caused suffering for indigenous people by invaders and colonization. In the realm of eternity, we can offer prayer and help for the suffering of the people long past, when the Spirit moves us to do so. As I watched a movie about World War II, I found myself praying for the soldiers dying in the battles. I trust my prayer was not wasted.

No wonder there are so many avenues of escape for the mind and heart in our world today. Who can humanly hold all this suffering of the present and the past before their eyes without feeling the need to escape? What is a person of prayer to do in the face of all this darkness? Thank God that He has given us the greatest prayer of all. As participants in the Priesthood of Christ we can offer to God the very sacrifice of His Son in the celebration of the Mass. When we go to Mass, we go in the name of all humankind interceding with Jesus before the Father for the salvation of all past and present. We have in our Catholic tradition the great gift of the rosary where we can send up the plaintive cry, “Mother of God...pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” Then in this past century so full of suffering, Jesus came to Sister Faustina, a young sister in Poland, and communicated to her knowledge of His mercy and a way of prayer that can help extend the offering of His sacrifice to the Father. In the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, we have a way of channeling our awareness of suffering in the world into a cry for help “for the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.'

When I awake at night and the awareness of some need of my family or some suffering in the world weighs on my mind and banishes sleep, it is the hopeful and trusting recitation of the Chaplet, the Jesus Prayer or the Rosary that eases my heart and often rocks me to sleep. Then I remember a psalm that has been running through my heart in recent years: “Lord, my heart is not proud; nor are my eyes haughty. I do not busy myself with great matters, with things too sublime for me; rather, I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap so is my soul within me. Israel, hope in the Lord both now and forever Psalm 131.” To me it is an invitation from God to trust in Him and to entrust to Him all needs of those close to me and of all peoples. We are called to rest on the lap of our Father and trust unreservedly in His Divine Mercy. As I respond to my call to the mystery of intercessory prayer, I stumble along trying to do my part, asking our dear Mother how to be an intercessor for others, in love before God.