FRANCISCAN

REFLECTIONS FROM THE HERMITAGE Intercessory Prayer - Our food of Hope

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

(Matthew 5:23-24)

Words Have Power

Twenty years ago and a few weeks before her death, Princess Diana travelled to Bosnia and made a promise to a stranger and a landmine victim, “you will not be forgotten”. Muhamed Suljkanovic, had lost both his feet stepping on a landmine in the forest outside his house, a remnant of Bosnia's three year war. He explained that these words of Princess Diana were like “wind behind his back”. While thousands of similar victims in Bosnia have taken their own life in desperation, he says that these words kept hope alive in his heart.

Twenty years ago I was working with the street children in Bertrams Johannesburg. One afternoon I caught two of the boys underneath my motorcar sawing away at the brake fluid pipe. In anger and exasperation shouted to the one young boy, “you are going to end up in jail”. My sorrow at these harsh words that I had spoken in anger could not undo the prediction of what would come about.

Our words and our actions have power that extends into decades and even into generations. They have the power to spread and multiply like a virus. The abused becomes an abuser; the victim of discrimination becomes the source of violence and domination… We suffer and we transmit our pain to others. A violent tempest that can tear a community apart into different factions; holding on to other’s mistakes and binding us into knots that are the debts we hold over each other’s heads even as we pray, “forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors”. Loosen the shackles that imprison and bind us in guilt and despair even as we have loosed the knots that bind as others prisoners of their mistakes.

These are the knots, the troubles and struggles we face for which we cannot see any resolution … knots of discord in your family, lack of understanding between parents and children, disrespect, violence, the knots of deep hurts between husband and wife, the absence of peace and joy at home.

There are also the knots of anguish and despair of separated couples, the breakup of the family, the knots of a drug addict son or daughter, sick or separated from home or God; knots of alcoholism, the practice of abortion, depression, unemployment, fear, solitude; the knots of forgetfulness… These are the knots of our life! They suffocate the soul, beat us down and betray the heart’s joy just as they separate us from each other and separate us from God and all of creation.

Each one of us are called by God to share in the power of unbinding just as Jesus asked the community to unbind Lazarus from his death bindings. It is in our act of unbinding the other into freedom that we also find out own freedom and joy.

It is only in this state as one family and community that we stand before God to become fully reconciled in God’s love and Mercy. Jesus the Christ becomes open and present to us in the NOW, bringing all the past into that now for that deep healing that is only possible in and through God. For God is always present in the NOW; the past and the present and the future all present in this one moment of now. It is in this moment of God healing those deep past hurts that are future is redirected towards new life and joy.

I have seen this power and I witness to the wonder and the joy of the sacrament of reconciliation. Everywhere in in every place and in every time this is God working to restore us to full life; God does not forget us! Even if your heart today is filled with anger and resentment and bitterness, one small step will begin a new journey.

Hold your enemy towards God, “Lord, bless this person”. The smallest little beginning and God will reach across the abyss to lead us to freedom. Without this we will never know peace and joy! Without this we will never know love. Without this we will destroy each other and our world.

All of this, freedom, peace, joy and love are within our grasp today; freely given by a God who is with us. Let us not wait for sickness and death to overcome us. Let each of us take this little step today, “Lord, bless this person”. Each little step will transform us, will transform our families, will transform our communities and will transform the world. Lord, I know that within myself I do not have the power to forgive and so Jesus I hold before you today my enemy and my tormentor that you may bless them and give me life. The Lord grant you peace!

Intercession is a prayer of petition which leads us to pray as Jesus did. He is the one intercessor with the Father on behalf of all … especially sinners. He is "able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." The Holy Spirit "himself intercedes for us . . . and intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." [COCC 2634]

Though we often imagine that our intercessory prayers are meant to summon God’s intervention in changing the circumstances of others, it is also often the case that we are remade in the process of seeking the redemption of those for whom we pray.

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:2426)

The Spirit Helps In Our Weakness

The wisdom of the Church Fathers

Origen: Just as a sick man does not ask the doctor for things which will restore him to health but rather for things which his disease longs for, so likewise we, as long as we are languishing in the weakness of this life, will from time to time ask God for things which are not good for us. This is why the Spirit has to help us. [CER 4:76-78.]

Ambrosiaster: Our prayers are weak because they ask for things contrary to reason, and for this reason Paul shows that this weakness in us is helped by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The Holy Spirit helps because he does not allow anything we ask for before the proper time or against God’s wishes to happen. Paul says that the Spirit intercedes for us not with human words but according to his own nature. For when what comes from God speaks with God, it is obvious that he will speak in the same way as the one from whom he comes speaks. For the Spirit given to us overflows with our prayers in order to make up for our inadequacy and lack of foresight by his actions and to ask God for the things which will be of benefit to us.

Commentary on Paul’s Epistles. [CSEL 81.1:287-89.]

Chrysostom: The Spirit is always there to help us and to do his part. Since we are ignorant of much that is profitable for us and we ask for things which are not profitable, the gift of prayer used to come into one person in the church, and he would be the person set aside to ask God for the things which would benefit them all. [NPNF 1 11:446.]

Chrysostom: It is not possible, says Paul, for us human beings to have a precise knowledge of everything. So we ought to yield to the Creator of our nature and with joy and great relish accept those things which he has decided on and have an eye not to the appearance of events but to the decisions of the Lord. After all, he knows better than we do what is for our benefit, and he also knows what steps must be taken for our salvation. Homilies on Genesis 30.16. [FC 82:233.]

Augustine: “We do not know how to pray as we ought” for two reasons. First, it is not yet clear what future we are hoping for or where we are heading, and second, many things in this life may seem positive but are in fact negative, and vice versa. Tribulation, for example, when it comes to a servant of God in order to test or correct him may seem futile to those who have less understanding. But God often helps us through tribulation, and prosperity, which may be negative if it traps the soul with delight and the love of this life, is sought after in vain. [AOR 27.]

The Spirit that intercedes is nothing but the same Love which the Spirit has wrought in you. Love itself groans in prayer, and he who gave it cannot shut his ears to its voice. Cast away care, let Love make request, and the ears of God are ready to listen. The answer comes… not what you want but what is to your advantage. Homilies on 1 John 6.8. [LCC 8:307.] we have been made partakers in Jesus' victory over sin and death (1 John 4:4) we have the authority as sons and daughters of God to pray for others, pushing back the darkness of sin and oppression. In prayer, we have a weapon that has divine power to destroy strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:4).

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBOUR… BUT INTERCESSORY PRAYER… PRAYING ON BEHALF OF OTHER PEOPLE… IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL.

What an unspeakable grace to be allowed to deal with God in intercession for the supply of other’s needs! To be able to take part in Christ's great work as intercessor is such a blessing. It is wonderful to be in close union with Him and to mingle your prayers with His! What an honour to have power with God in heaven over souls and to obtain for them what they do not even know or think!

What a privilege, as a steward of the grace of God, to bring to Him the state of the church or individual souls, of ministers of the Word, or of missionaries in far away lands, and plead on their behalf until He entrusts you with the answer!

What a blessing, to strive together in prayer with other believers until the victory is gained here on earth or over the powers of darkness in high places!

It is indeed worth living for to know that God will use you as an intercessor to receive and dispense His heavenly blessing and, above all, the power of His Holy Spirit here on earth.

This is in its very act the life of heaven, the life of the Lord Jesus Himself in His self-denying love, taking possession of you and urging you to yield yourself wholly to bear the burden of souls before Him and to plead that they may live.

Too long have we thought of prayer simply as a means for the supplying of our needs in life and service. May God help us to see the place intercession takes in His divine counsel and in His work for the kingdom.

God invites us to seek thereby not only personal transformation but the transformation of the world as well. An intercessor is one who takes up a "burden" that goes far beyond his or her own needs and intentions.

What a mystery of glory there is in prayer! On the one hand we see God in His holiness, love, and power waiting and longing to bless man. On the other hand there is sinful man, a worm of the dust, bringing down from God by prayer the very life and love of heaven to dwell in his heart.

But the glory of intercession is so much greater when a man is bold and asks from God what he desires for others. He seeks to bring to one soul, or maybe hundreds and thousands, the power of the eternal life with all its blessings.

Intercession! Surely this is the very holiest exercise of our boldness as God’s children? It is the highest privilege and enjoyment connected to our communion with God. It is the power of being used by God as an instrument for His great work of making people His dwelling place and showing forth His glory.

Surely the church should count intercession as one of the chief means of grace? The church should seek, above everything else, to cultivate in God's children the power of an unceasing prayerfulness on behalf of the perishing world.

Believers who have to some extent been brought into the secret should know what strength there is in unity. And what assurance there is that God will avenge His people who cry to Him day and night.

It is only when Christians stop looking for help in external union and bind together as one to the throne of God through an unceasing devotion to Jesus Christ and an unceasing continuance in supplication for the power of God’s Spirit, that the church will put her beautiful garments and her strength, too, and overcome the world. (Bodo, Murray: Standing in the Gap: 2008)