By Fr Christopher John De Sousa CRS
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Mt 21:22)
Intercessory prayer is where we faithfully follow Our Lord Jesus Christ’s lead who “lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25), by stepping outside of our own lives by praying for the needs of others on their behalf.
But it’s much more than being a good prayer disciple!
Through our baptism, we receive the Holy Spirit, the principle agent of evangelisation, who “Himself intercedes for us…and intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (CCC 2634) and we are incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ (the Church) so we actually get to share in Jesus’ powerful intercession as the ‘’one mediator between God and men’’ (1 Tm 2:5).
So what does this mean for our intercessory prayers?
“Well, since our power to intercede for one another is a participation in Christ’s intercession and an activation of the Holy Spirit, our prayers are therefore outside of time and space!”
This is why we can intercede not only for the living but also for the dead, and not only for each other here on earth but we can also seek the intercession of those already in God’s Glory, the saints in Heaven.
One massive communion of intercession where we can get everybody on to the prayer link-up bandwagon!
Right up there as our greatest saint intercessor, whose maternal embrace extends to all her children (Rv 12:17), is none other than Our Blessed Mother Mary.
We can reach out to Our Lady with the confidence booster that Christ performed his first public miracle thanks to the intercession of His Mother at the wedding feast in Cana (Jn 2:1-10) and those Cana-style miracles keep coming also with the intercession of other saints too.
In Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel), he writes, “The great men and women of God were great intercessors. Intercession is like a ‘leaven’ in the heart of the Trinity. It is a way of penetrating the Father’s heart and discovering new dimensions which can shed light on concrete situations and change them.”
At times we might feel that we should only be interceding for those “big ticket items”, such as world peace, for the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth and so on, but Jesus tells us to pray as little children (Mt 18:3; Mt 19:14), so we can and should penetrate the heart of God the Father even with the smallest needs that we notice around us in our everyday lives – our intercessory requests pleases God so much!
Intercessory prayer helps us to overcome that ‘fear of asking’ and instils deeper the filial relationship between God the Father and we, His children, so that we become more and more comfortable to place situations and people in His Hands – we just give it all over to Him (and be open should God ask us to play a role in His response!).
This is because at the heart of intercessory prayer is that we can reach out to God on behalf of others in charity and complete trust that He can. do. the. impossible. if it’s in accordance with His Most Holy Will. God’s lordship is over all of us and over all creation so, as Our Holy Father affirms, our concrete situations can be changed and new dimensions can be discovered through our intercessory prayers.
“Changes that can be effected as a result of our intercessory prayers come sealed with a promise from Our Lord Jesus Christ that “whatever you ask in my name, I will do it” (Jn 14:13) and just in case we didn’t get the message clear enough, Our Lord vehemently repeats Himself, “if you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (Jn 14:14).”
There’s no need to be reading between the lines here, always intercede for others in Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Most Holy Name so that God the Father can be glorified in His Son!
If you’re ready and willing the incorporate intercessory prayer into your life, it can be done by bringing those prayer intentions to the Holy Mass (let them be collected with all other prayers when the celebrating priest says ‘let us pray’ before the Collect/Opening Prayer at the beginning of Mass); included in the intercessory prayers within the Liturgy of the Hours (public prayers of the Church); they can offered before reciting the Holy Rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet; presented to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament during a Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration; or by joining together with others to form an intercessory prayer group – experiencing the prayer link-up in a very tangible way!
Intercessory prayer can also be made at any time, situation or location when we are bold enough in our faith to intercede specifically for others, praying from our hearts for the Holy Spirit to act in both inspiring and uniting our prayers before placing them into the heart of the Trinity.
My prayers are with you too! May Our Lord Jesus Christ always be praised, through His Mother, Mary Most Holy.